Leveraging and Building Podcast Audiences

Tom Nixon (00:02.193)
Curtis, I know that you know how much I love talking about podcasts on a podcast. So when we do a podcasting or podcast about podcasting, I should have guessed that you were going to call the podcast police on.

Curtis Hays (00:17.038)
I try. I try. I’ve been trying to find you some guests who can talk about podcasting and I think we got a good one today.

Tom Nixon (00:25.713)
But really we needed the police. I mean, I didn’t even know there was such a thing. But what did you mean when you said I’m calling the podcast police on you?

Curtis Hays (00:29.068)
There is.

Curtis Hays (00:33.164)
Well, it’s actually a good friend of mine, Jessica Police, that we’re bringing on the show today. Jessica met her and her husband, gosh, going back 16 years ago. Jessica’s had quite the journey. I know since then, though, this podcast isn’t about her journey, but she’s… You probably have a podcast out there about your journey. If you do, we can put it in the show notes.

Jessica Pulis (00:47.19)
Yeah.

Jessica Pulis (01:00.126)
Yes.

Curtis Hays (01:01.998)
because it is quite the journey. You and your husband have spent time overseas, you’ve lived in Europe, you’ve lived a couple different places within the States, you’ve had an excellent career. I think you worked at Clear Channel, correct?

Jessica Pulis (01:15.776)
Their channel before it was iHeart, yep.

Curtis Hays (01:18.168)
Yep. And even there, I remember when you got back from Europe and you came back with Clear Channel, they were then teaching you about digital advertising. Cause prior to that you were only, and you had this like sheet, you’re like, sit down with me and talk to me about Google advertising and Facebook advertising. Cause I got to learn all of this now. So, yep, you’ve been definitely a learner over the years and transitioning is different advertising platforms have come out, but your background is in.

Jessica Pulis (01:27.22)
Yes, yes.

Jessica Pulis (01:34.614)
Yep. Yep.

in a transition.

Curtis Hays (01:46.401)
advertising for the most part, right Jessica?

Jessica Pulis (01:48.032)
Correct. Advertising my whole career, just a couple of different routes.

Curtis Hays (01:51.853)
Yeah. And so this recently, what I’m really curious about talking to you about is this recent route that you’ve taken, which is advertising in the podcast space.

Jessica Pulis (02:02.078)
Yes, it is. started in local radio and the transition to national podcast space is, it’s a different animal, but it’s a lot of fun.

Curtis Hays (02:12.174)
Cool. Well, Tom, I’m giving you somebody you can learn from today then is doing advert, not just doing podcasting, but doing advertising in the podcast space. This is a topic we have not covered in previous episodes.

Tom Nixon (02:12.817)
So Jessica, what do you do?

Tom Nixon (02:23.783)
That’s right. I was going to ask you. So what is your day to day or your year to year job and tail? What are you doing and for whom?

Jessica Pulis (02:33.206)
So I work with a company called Red Seat Ventures. We were just acquired by the Fox Corp, but it’s been an independent company for well over a decade. We are kind of like an advertising agency for podcasts where our company partners with creators and we help them to build their podcast and they’ve got their own content. They’re in charge of their show, but we help to market it.

We them if they need production. help them with, my department specifically helps them with advertising. So we go out and we find the advertisers to fit in alignment with whatever the show content is and the host that’s hosting it. We find advertisers that wanna partner with them.

Tom Nixon (03:20.551)
And so like anything that’s still relatively new, right? It’s not, you know, hasn’t been around as long as AM radio, for example. I would imagine there’s still some people who are slow to adopt and adapt. So what is you think like one of your best pitches to get somebody convinced that even advertising on a podcast makes perfect sense for their brand?

Jessica Pulis (03:40.598)
Well, it’s kind of a couple of different avenues that you can approach it with, right? So there’s, can look at it as they’re a TV advertiser and you can direct them into the video portion of podcasting. You can look at them as they’re a radio advertiser and you can transition them into the audio version of the podcasting because I think podcasting has evolved so much over the past, you know, even just in the past couple of years where video has become so much more

relevant in the podcast space where before back, you know, 10 years ago, it was just audio. were going into, you know, wherever you get your podcast and you were just listening. but now you can do both. And so many creators are putting out video because they like to repurpose it onto social media. And there’s a lot of different ways that people can partner with podcasters to fit whatever their advertising need is. additionally, I think that the biggest.

biggest draw for podcasting is that you can find your niche audience. So, you know, a local radio station, they’re going to have a big mass appeal. They’re going to have one demographic that they’re talking to that is kind of just to get the large volume of listeners. And you can do that with podcasting, but you can also drill down to a very small niche topic that makes sense for your brand. And that audience is going to that creator for that content. So it makes sense to have your brand there.

Tom Nixon (05:10.855)
Curtis, that sounds like something we talked about last week, actually, with Claudia in terms of podcasters having influence, obviously. So they’re something of an influencer. But it’s been interesting to watch me to watch you evolve from an advertising standpoint because, know, you’ve had a long history of digital advertising to now this word that keeps coming out of your mouth is this authenticity, which you seem, Curtis, to be like this huge advocate for authenticity and

Curtis Hays (05:34.328)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Nixon (05:40.751)
It seems to me that when you are advertising a brand on a podcast that also aligns with not only your own personal belief system, but the audience that that podcast serves. Now you’re getting into the realm of authenticity where the ads sometimes don’t even feel like ads sometimes.

Curtis Hays (05:58.381)
Yeah, it’s been my observation and doing this for over 10 years that the brands that do well are authentic. And those that are just pushing out advertising for the sake of advertising don’t. They get that less than 2 % conversion rate. You look at the brands that get like 7, 10, some higher conversion rates, they’ve done this.

work to first of all build the brand and build trust within their marketplace. And then two, the content that they’re putting out there resonates with their ideal customer profile. So they’ve identified who that customer is. Our advertising only goes to that customer. So it’s very segmented. It’s very precise, that bullseye targeting. And then usually it’s going to resonate at that point. We see the response that we get. You’ve established the trust.

You’ve got the right message to the right audience. And then there’s a response, that response you expect. You’re not being gimmicky. You’re you’re endorsing something or you’re providing some level of education and something that you care about. And you’re presenting it to people who also care about that same thing.

Tom Nixon (07:15.131)
Jessica that word endorsement that Curtis just used is that something I mean, obviously the AM personalities of the world Howard Stern’s Rush Limbaugh’s of the world were known. Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m showing my age. I didn’t say Don Imus though, but I do know who he is. So shoot, but there was always this like this endeavor to get celebrity endorsements and I see feel like that’s a big part of the podcasting.

Jessica Pulis (07:24.586)
You’re going way back.

Jessica Pulis (07:30.602)
haha

Jessica Pulis (07:42.612)
Absolutely.

Tom Nixon (07:42.787)
advertising space. Is that something you’re working with clients to do as well?

Jessica Pulis (07:45.66)
Absolutely. majority, would say 90 % of my business is doing host read campaigns because that’s, know, people in the podcast world, they want to do business with the people that they know, like and trust. So when you align yourself with a host that aligns with your brand and your product, and they’ve got that audience that aligns with them, them speaking about your product is kind of that transfer of trust.

And that gives your brand just a little bit more of an edge. So 90 % of my business is doing a red campaign.

Tom Nixon (08:24.721)
Curtis bookmark that term transfer of trust. We got to use that. That’s brilliant.

Curtis Hays (08:31.613)
We’ll re-listen to the recording and we’ll, you know, sometimes I have to listen to these a few times before I really get what, you know, the message behind what our guests say. like sometimes it takes a few times to be like, wow, that was actually really powerful what you just said there.

Tom Nixon (08:46.425)
Yeah. Well, a transfer of trust speaks to something that sort of I was going to segue to, is back in the day. So again, showing my age, it was all about numbers, right? So people wanted to know what was the reach? What was the circulation of the magazine? Are advertisers asking for those numbers or is there more of a sort of leap of faith that says the numbers are one thing, but I want a density something that Claudia brought up last week. I want a density of true hardcore fans.

because I know that I could get that transfer of trust more easily than I can say reaching a million people 10 % of which are only engaged. So what are the advertisers asking for? What do you think are the important metrics?

Jessica Pulis (09:23.381)
Yes.

So there’s two different viewpoints, right? So first and foremost, reach is still a thing. So how many impressions are you gonna get with one ad, you know, the cost per thousand conversation? But then it’s, are you looking to cast a wide net? Are you looking to use a fishing pole? So when you have a broad topic show that is covering multiple, you know, multiple topics or a very broad topic, you’re gonna have that bigger audience, that bigger…

network of people that are tuning in. But when you have that niche podcast, that niche topic, and your audience is automatically going to be smaller, but the people that are tuning, choosing to tune into you, they’re gonna, they’re more in line with that niche. So again, you can also have that larger cost per thousand because it’s a more valuable, more premium audience when you have a smaller topic.

So there’s kind of two trains of thought there. So we get both, right? So we have large shows within our network and we have very niche shows within our network. And it’s just a different conversation of what the advertiser is wanting to achieve with their campaigns.

Tom Nixon (10:42.375)
And do you feel like advertisers are becoming more savvy around the value of, you know, deep but narrow as opposed to wide but shallow or is that something you’re still educating folks on?

Jessica Pulis (10:55.674)
You know, it’s a little bit of both. Some people get it and some people are still stuck in the traditional model of, you local, like a local radio. Like how many times is my commercial going to air? Like you can tune in at, you know, during morning drive at 9 a.m. But podcasting is different because people listen at all different times. So it is an education process, but more and more people are catching up with what the technology is doing.

Tom Nixon (11:24.113)
Curtis, what about you? So I know that you’re an analytical minded person. You love analytics and data. And one of the early metrics that you were going to measure our podcast on were the typical metrics, right? And I’m sure based on your aspirational visions, it was a disappointment at first. It always is when you’re launching a new podcast. But how has your sort of thinking evolved? What do you measure, whether it’s hard data or soft data that says, OK, we’re having an impact. We’re reaching people.

Curtis Hays (11:54.539)
Well, I was excited at first. I think because I was doing I mean, it was new. So you get that like initial set of people who are already, you know, following you customers, you know, friends and family. Our moms, right? You know, they tune in, they listen. So they jump on that increases that you know, you get that first hundred subscribers. Okay, you know, we did that.

Tom Nixon (12:11.303)
You

Curtis Hays (12:20.236)
And then I did some advertising. So then I was like, OK, well, let’s try and grow this. And at least on the YouTube side, so the video side, we grew the channel. And then I started looking at the data. was like, well, that didn’t really work because I got all these subscribers, thousands of them, but nobody’s watching. It’s like, who are these people actually? I got to click the button to subscribe. I don’t know if Google’s not showing the content.

Jessica Pulis (12:41.11)
9.

Curtis Hays (12:49.282)
you know, our episodes in feats and people aren’t tuning in. I don’t know if those are just bots subscribing or what it was, but, you know, I started to get a little disappointed, I think, in the amount that people watched. I look over on the, on the audio side in Spotify, we get the longer listen times because we’ve talked about this time, you know, those are the people who are, they’ve got 30 minutes during a workout or 30 minutes while they’re on a

commute or they’re mowing the lawn and they put headphones in, they can listen to that. you know, it’s, it’s, they can do other things at the same time. And I think that’s the beauty of podcasting is, you know, it’s, doesn’t require 100 % of your attention to tune in. So, you know, that does, that does fairly well. Where I really got excited though, again, this happens sort of infrequently, but Tom and I have been talking about this

this term lurkers and that we have these these people who are kind of grabbing snippets, the shorts that we’re posting on social media and the little pieces of content that are part of a larger episode and they’re not necessarily subscribed. They’re not necessarily listening to every episode, but they are consuming the content and then lo and behold out of nowhere, I’ll either run into them or they’re shoot me an email and say, hey, Curtis, I’ve been listening for the last six months. Good stuff. I got a problem. Can you help?

Jessica Pulis (13:56.342)
Okay.

Jessica Pulis (14:18.218)
love it. So I could speak to that for a minute because the podcast, starting a podcast is very difficult and so many people think, I’m just going to get a microphone and publish my stuff and everybody’s going to listen, I’m going to be this famous person. Not the case. There are so many people out there that just want this quick thing, but podcasts takes time.

Tom Nixon (14:19.771)
Well, it’s the same thing. Yeah, please, Jessica.

Curtis Hays (14:20.162)
So yeah.

Jessica Pulis (14:42.902)
You have to build something consistently. You guys are doing great with having a weekly episode, right? So keep that weekly episode and that takes time to grow. The other thing that we often do within our network is when we have a new podcast that’s launching and we have a few that are coming in one of our networks in the next month. But what’s gonna happen is you’re gonna see them as a guest on another one of our podcasts. And they’re going to reciprocate that and try to build off each other’s audiences.

because that is a fast way to grow and get that momentum behind it before putting advertising dollars towards your show, right? So being guests on other shows. But the biggest thing with podcasting is that it takes time. And then to speak to what you were talking about, the clips. So that’s the beautiful part about everybody doing podcasts with video now, because you can take that large episode, chop it up into little pieces that people can digest quickly.

and then they’re getting the portion of the show that they really want, right? They’re not having to sit down for a half an hour or some of our shows are two hours, two and a half, three, depending on who it is. And that’s a lot of time for somebody to commit to watching YouTube or listening on Spotify. So taking that little bit and being able to repurpose it into social or even just in YouTube shorts or clips gives you more exposure and can grow your podcast even faster, even if they’re not listening.

to the full episodes.

Tom Nixon (16:12.731)
wasn’t that true early on for us? The shorts were getting way more views than the entire episode we’re getting listens. Yeah.

Curtis Hays (16:18.292)
still is. Yeah. I mean, it’s sometimes like 400 on a short and 20 views on, you know, the actual episode itself in YouTube, right? I mean, it’s, it’s mind blowing. Yeah.

Tom Nixon (16:34.151)
then people report to us, hey, I listened to your podcast. Well, did you or did you watch? But we do know that people do. This goes back to something that you both kind of touched on. There are two like primary sort of categories of how you would measure the success of a podcast. One could be growth and reach and celebrities say. I would say for most of our audience, B2B brands, put that whole thing to side and put it to bed and say that’s not what we’re doing.

Curtis Hays (16:37.032)
Exactly. But it wasn’t the full episode. was, yeah.

Tom Nixon (16:59.495)
What we are doing is a sort of multimedia version of what people have been finally adopting in the last 10 years, which is content marketing. So if a prospect is vetting your brand against another and they have to go to your competitors website, if they want to get a sense for how this person thinks and how they solve problems, they could read 10 to 12 blog posts if they wanted to. And that could be time consuming and it might be a little dry and it might be one dimensional or they can listen to. And we know people have done this, Curtis, or they could listen to 20, 30 minute

podcast episodes while they’re driving to work while they’re driving home that day while they’re on the treadmill and not only get the same amount of information that they would have had. read 12 blog posts, but now they’ve got this three dimensional avatar of who this person is and what their personality is like. And am I going to like this person because I’m a B2B brand and 90 % of the decision goes into can I work with this guy, which is paraphrasing Don Draper, right? So I’m not advocating for people in the B2B world to create

podcast so that they can grow their audiences and be the next Joe Rogan. always say it’s so that you can take what you’re doing already in the content space. You’ve already, you know, espouse the value of that and put it into video, audio, all of these other multimedia. So based on that, Curtis, now how do you analyze the first 18 months of our podcasting experience?

Curtis Hays (18:23.362)
Well, I mean, the proof’s in the pudding with the few, you know, new pieces of business that we got from the podcast. mean, you explained it perfectly. I don’t think that the two clients that I can point to in the last six months that we did get through some effort of marketing didn’t come to the website and read blog posts or read case studies. In one case,

They came through a referral, then consumed the content through the podcast and said, hey, I like how you guys think, let’s work together. Another one was a lurker and just had been somebody I knew from 20 years ago, 20 plus years ago, hadn’t talked to in probably 15 years, but had been following the stuff on my LinkedIn feed because we were connected on LinkedIn. And then finally a problem arose and I was somebody they thought of.

Obviously because the content was being published.

Jessica Pulis (19:20.053)
I think.

Yeah, and I think it goes, I posted this on my LinkedIn not too long ago about telling your own story. So you guys have a great chance with what you’re doing to tell your own story. And people want to connect and know who they’re working with, right? They want to build that community and that rapport. So you guys, you have that content and that real life that you’re a human and you’re a person and you’re telling your own story, you have that engagement that is valuable to

listener or to in your case a client.

Tom Nixon (19:54.673)
Jessica, speaking of something that you posted on LinkedIn, an article you shared, it may have been Forbes. It was the seven emerging trends in the podcasting landscape. Do remember that piece? What resonated with you? Because all of the seven emerging trends were interesting to me. But what resonated with you as somebody who’s really deep into the space?

Jessica Pulis (20:05.982)
Yeah, yeah.

Jessica Pulis (20:11.423)
Right.

Well, I think the addition of video, and I think we’ve kind of already touched on it, the video and the microcasts, right? The little bits and snippets that we can share. Those two emerging trends, because like I said, it wasn’t video a while back, but now it is. And when you’re able to have that, I like to joke because being from local radio, used to be, you have a face for radio, but now you can’t. Everybody, you know.

everybody is on screen or on video all the time. So being able to use video in serving it to the places that video works is a huge, huge change over the years, but it’s also creating a lot more engagement and in a different engagement, right? So people that are consuming on YouTube, for example, they’re being served the algorithms and.

And, you know, but they’re getting the video and advertisers like the fact that they can have, you know, visual on screen, whether it’s product placement or that bottom lower third, you know, banner for their their vanity URL. And then with the audio side, it’s, you know, people are more in tune and they subscribe more. And it’s just part of their their habits that they’re going to. So the video has proposed this new like opportunity.

for advertisers to be in front of other people that maybe they weren’t in front of before because it’s the algorithms and it’s also social and you can take those little bite-sized pieces. So I think those two trends that have been evolving are helping podcasters reach people in different places.

Tom Nixon (21:53.915)
Would you say, Jessica, that podcasting is still a bit of a blue ocean in terms of it hasn’t been devoured by, you know, the sharks in the water. And so maybe you have a better chance to sort of play in an area where you’re not competing with thousands of advertisers like you might on FM radio. You know, if there’s a commercial break, it’s going to be seven minutes long. There’s going to be every car dealer in the area plus private injury or personal injury attorney. It’s like I’m skipping past that.

I don’t skip past the ads when I in a podcast because I know it’s only going to be 60, 90 seconds maybe. they’re back to what you said earlier. It’s likely that I’m interested in these brands because they align with my interests.

Jessica Pulis (22:34.038)
So within the podcasting space, you’ll have your programmatic ads, especially on audio that are just fed throughout the dashboards across different demographics. But as far as the host-read campaigns, you’re getting maybe two to four per episode. So you are standing out within the content. So it is a much cleaner advertising environment versus traditional media.

because there’s less ad space.

Tom Nixon (23:05.915)
So to both of you who I think you both would say you’re relatively newcomers to podcasting based on the trajectory of your careers. Have you because of getting into podcasting yourselves in various ways? Have you become either more frequent or more savvy consumers of other podcasts because of what you do now? Either one of you.

Jessica Pulis (23:24.278)
100%.

Curtis Hays (23:25.454)
Yep. I think there was a statistic you put out, Jessica on LinkedIn. was like eight. Eight isn’t the average person is eight.

Jessica Pulis (23:28.586)
Yeah. Yep. list, yeah, podcast users are on average tuning into eight different shows a week, whether that’s from the same host or different creators. Yeah.

Curtis Hays (23:39.502)
It’s more than one show a day, right? So it’s the commute, it’s the workout. It’s the instead of.

Jessica Pulis (23:44.286)
Yeah. It’s the sitting at, putting it on what I work remotely. So I put them on when I’m just, you know, doing client outreach and listening to whatever show I’m into at the time.

Curtis Hays (23:51.522)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and you’re in that space too, Jessica. Well, if I could add, you mentioned you work for Fox now, that is Fox is the company that built. We have a lot of those individuals who have podcast shows. They were broadcasters on news, right? So they had shows. So they can definitely take that audience that they used to have. But I think what I want to say is,

Tom Nixon (23:56.059)
So my final thought.

Curtis Hays (24:24.62)
These new shows are essentially stealing audiences who used to turn on their TV at night and watch the evening news. And now they’re choosing to get that content from the same personalities, but it’s not so much a news podcast. It’s covering news content, but it’s not that what happened today type of content. It includes still guests, but some of that analysis and those types of things, which is an interesting phenomenon.

And I’d be curious and haven’t looked at the statistics of how many people, not just with news, but just TV in general are turning it off. Like who’s advertising with Xfinity anymore? who particularly in our age group and younger even have an Xfinity Comcast subscription? You know, they’re you’re streaming. Yep, exactly. Yeah. So are you talking about that at all when you’re talking to your advertisers and

Jessica Pulis (25:01.706)
Right.

Jessica Pulis (25:09.502)
Right. The cable cutters. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica Pulis (25:45.47)
It depends on the demographic. What demographic you’re looking at. And news podcasts are gonna steer a little more male, 35 plus. But if you’ve got a 65 plus, they might still be tuning into the television. So it really depends on what demographic. So we talk through that with the clients just to say, okay, who are you looking to target? Let’s see if we have this audience within our network to…

to give your exposure to.

Curtis Hays (26:19.448)
I have a quick question if I could add to your time. So two areas that I’m curious about. One is, what genres, I guess, do you kind of see sort of exploding at least, or maybe not even exploding, but just noticeably, know, besides the new stuff and the general content Joe Rogan personalities, but like what type of content are you starting to see? And then from the advertising side, like who’s starting to really be interested then and…

wanting to advertise, thinking about industries or verticals and those types of things. Health, see as like one area. mean, there’s so many health podcasts right now all across the board. That’s obviously one industry that is rapidly growing. But what else are you seeing?

Jessica Pulis (26:57.846)
Right. Right.

So we represent a majority of conservative political news. That’s kind of our forte. We also have a section of our company is on the crime. What’s the crime? True crime thing. True crime, yes. So those are two niches that our company has really developed. I do see sports continuing to grow. That’s always a huge, you

Tom Nixon (27:18.897)
True crime. Yeah.

Curtis Hays (27:19.821)
Yeah.

Jessica Pulis (27:32.98)
Everyone likes to talk about their sports teams and there’s so many different ways that you can talk about your sports teams. Health is huge. I’m a big consumer of a lot of health nut and know, maha type podcasts and those are, know, with the, the focus email viewers, huge, huge. Yeah. And you know, with the, the changes in, in people wanting to be healthier and wanting to, you know, go back

Curtis Hays (27:45.773)
Mm-hmm.

Curtis Hays (27:50.734)
A lot of your female viewers, right? A of your female listeners.

Jessica Pulis (28:03.44)
backwards right and create our own food like we’re supposed to. There’s a lot of podcasts out there for those types of people. But you know I think that niche podcasts are going to gain a lot of traction because they’re going to be so micro focused. But those are going to be very small audiences and those are going to be very small smaller advertisers or very niche advertisers.

But to answer your question on what advertisers are saying, I was very surprised at how, you know, coming over to a conservative news platform from general media, I was quite taken back with how many people want to be in that space and advertise. And you’ve got everything from, you know, the prepper type mentality with food supply and satellite telephones and that sort of thing. you know, regular cell phones or like a bone broth company or

know, sheets, we have people that are advertising betting on our podcast. So there’s a very large, large audience that want it to be in that conservative news space. but I think as podcasts continue to grow, and I think with us being under the Fox umbrella now, we’ll start seeing some of those general market advertisers come into this space because they know the value behind it. but I think, you know,

When I was in local radio, there was a local radio budget and then there was a digital budget. I think a lot of that money is going to start shifting more into the digital space and the digital podcasting space because when you’re on a podcast, you’re able to connect with that audience that’s choosing to go consume that content. they’re going to have, know, bigger brands are going to have to be in multiple places just to be able to capture the audience that was all before just in one place.

Tom Nixon (29:57.031)
Yeah, that’s a great point. And sort of my broad takeaway from whether it’s podcasting or just new media in general is brands need to like free themselves from the old mentality that we’re going to buy the biggest number, say circulation or reach or whatever it is and just throw know that there’s wasted there. Right. 10 to 20 % of our audience is in there somewhere and we’re going to advertise to everybody and hope we get them. Whereas now we’re taking this approach where let’s go find like

80 to 90 % of your audience is listening. Like you said, choosing to listen to something, not it just happens to be on the radio at Hudson’s dating myself. Kmart, right? Is that how valuable is that impression compared to somebody who said, you know what? I’m pulling up this podcast today. I’m going to listen to whole thing front and back. So people just need to rethink their strategy and not just because an audience is small. Think of it as inconsequential. My last final takeaway.

Jessica Pulis (30:35.54)
the dentist office.

Jessica Pulis (30:45.482)
Yep, exactly.

Jessica Pulis (30:52.18)
Exactly.

Tom Nixon (30:54.951)
is what do you guys either of you have a final takeaway and then I’ll wrap it up. So what would be your final audience? Maybe I’ll pose my question. Doesn’t it seem to me? It does seem to me that podcasting is that seems ubiquitous because there’s I don’t know if you saw the meme this week that somebody created a AI Jesus podcast. It’s like, so I think the joke there is like everybody has a podcast even Jesus Christ. So I think there’s this joke that there’s too many podcasts. I would submit that.

There is still Greenfield for both creators and definitely for advertisers. Both of these people types of people have opportunity to get into podcasting, and I think both types should still consider it. That’s my final thought. Curtis, what’s yours?

Curtis Hays (31:41.837)
I agree. think a lot of brands, especially the smaller brands, need to get creative. And what I’m seeing is like Google ads, take a look at meta, Facebook ads, even LinkedIn now. Why these digital channels are saturated. And that saturation does a couple things. One, it increases the cost. the cost of advertising in these platforms, even just a few years ago has

Jessica Pulis (31:58.294)
Mm-hmm.

Curtis Hays (32:10.478)
upwards have doubled. I’m in one industry right now. We used to have CPCs at like $5 to $15. I looked the other day, it’s $77 for a click. mean, these are like attorney type fees. This is a construction vertical. It’s like not even building a whole home. This is like in that general contractor space, $77 on a keyword. It’s crazy. And then you look at a 2 % conversion rate. So it’s like

You you bring 50 people to the website, you get one, maybe good lead. Maybe it’s a good lead, right? So you just spent a lot of money for that one phone call. So you got to get creative. think, you know, part of that creativity is also that authenticity. You know, so you did, we’ve been wanting to have a podcast about this time. I think we finally need to bring on a guest to talk about, like, stop hiding behind your logo and or hiding behind your brand. And the thing I love about podcasting is like,

you know, these personalities are, you know, they’re sort of exposed and they’re vulnerable to open conversations like this where they could get stumped. you know, so there’s this authenticity and vulnerability about it, but I think that attracts a lot of people to like, what could happen in this episode? It’s pretty neat. So I encourage if there’s an opportunity for you to get somehow involved, whether you’re advertising in some niche areas, whether there’s some

some influencers who have podcasts that are in your niche and you can somehow come alongside them, great. If nobody’s really doing anything and you’ve got the opportunity to educate and do something like what we’re doing, it’s paid off for us. That’s my own personal experience.

Tom Nixon (33:55.259)
Yeah. What you mentioned to about targeting is all about the bulls eyes in our name, right? So there’s certainly value in having a bullhorn, but bulls eyes is when you really get to the target audience. So, yes, pun intended target audience. Jessica, your final thoughts.

Jessica Pulis (33:55.37)
Yeah. Yeah. It’s interesting.

Curtis Hays (34:02.146)
Yeah, yeah.

Jessica Pulis (34:09.066)
Yeah. So Kurt, was interesting you said how expensive keywords are. A lot of my clients are taking that money out of Google and Meta and putting it into podcast advertising and finding a better success because they have that banner on the screen that gives them like a 10 to 15 % lift and lead. You have the link in the show notes to link them right to both in audio and video, link them right to the product that they’re talking about.

But Tom, you had mentioned that there’s a lot of opportunity out there for podcasters. And I think that there’s so much opportunity in the podcast world for anybody that wants to start a podcast. Because if you think about somebody that wants to start a business, there’s probably somebody out there that already did it. But the way that you’re going to do it is going to be a little bit different. It’s going to be unique to you. And it’s going to probably help somebody that’s out there.

So I think there’s a lot of opportunity in the podcast space for content creators and for advertisers to take that leap of faith.

Tom Nixon (35:17.445)
Jessica, you teed up like my favorite quip when somebody objections. Does the world really need another podcast? And I always quit back. Does the world need another website? You got one of those, right? So to your point, this is your voice, your opportunity to express your brand and not hide behind the logo. So do you have, any anecdotal sort of stories from advertisers that maybe came over from traditional or terrestrial media and said, tried this and

Jessica Pulis (35:28.384)
Yeah, exactly.

Tom Nixon (35:44.037)
reported back to you. Wow. This is really good. They’re probably apprehensive because they don’t want you to raise their CPMs, but you hear any of this sort of successes from the advertisers themselves.

Jessica Pulis (35:49.248)
Right.

Jessica Pulis (35:52.65)
You know, it’s, we have all kinds of different conversations with our advertisers, the one is the testimonials where they get a response from their customers that said, I heard you on this show, or I heard you on that show. And that is just a true testament of how our creators can be such an influence into moving product for people.

Curtis Hays (36:19.01)
And that’s actually my tip. I want to have one more final thought as a tip that if you have this opportunity, if you’re selling a product in your cart, or think about your cart, or if you’re selling a service, think about this question on a form or when the salespeople get on the phone, is what led you to your purchase today? Or what led you to picking up the phone and calling us? There’s likely multiple touch points. We’ve talked about the

7, 10, 11 rule. But there’s something that compelled that person to take action. And if you can frame that question, what led you to your purchase today, it’ll not just give you attribution from a channel perspective of the last click, so to speak. It’s that likely in that survey response will be, what really was that compelling motivation that said, OK, I got to buy this product or I got to learn more?

Jessica Pulis (36:49.59)
Yeah.

Curtis Hays (37:16.8)
And the insight you’re going to get to that, if it is, Hey, I heard you on a podcast and so and so endorsed you, you know, and are armed with that information to know whether or not it’s actually working. We did this for a brand who like, we looked at the data after sort of accidentally implementing this in another survey tool. And it was like a channel that they weren’t even thinking about, but it was all sort of like,

a channel where people were referring and talking about the product, but they weren’t like direct referrals, people were just talking about the product in a space that they weren’t paying attention to. And then that just exploded opportunities to really get more people talking about the product because people are trying to consume and they’re looking for that content. Right. So, yeah, it’s just sort of that.

Jessica Pulis (37:47.542)
Yeah.

Curtis Hays (38:03.318)
that endorsement and then it was an area of authenticity. It wasn’t you guys saying, hey, our product’s the best, it. It was other people saying, we bought this, we tested it out, and this is what it can actually do. And so, again, if you’re selling a product, whatever, my tip is what led you to your purchase today? Ask that question at checkout or have sales ask it, record that information and report on it and you’ll be surprised potentially at the insight you’ll get out of it.

Tom Nixon (38:31.867)
There you go. So you heard them folks. So if you want 50 % off the cost of an annual subscription to our free newsletter, amplify and aim, use the code bullseye 2025 at checkout. All right. Cool. All right, Jessica. This was the best experience I’ve ever had with the police. So thank you so much for coming on in the podcast. Please are welcome back anytime.

Jessica Pulis (38:56.022)
I appreciate it. Thanks so much.

Tom Nixon (38:57.819)
See y’all next time on Bullhorns and Bullseyes.