Sam Birkett 0:05
Hello, and welcome once again back to Marketing Meanders with Sally and Sam. And now it's part two for our podcast about podcasting and we'll be exploring a little bit more about why podcasts have become so popular at the moment, why we do them, what we can get out of them and what might they lead to. Anyway, I'll be quiet and I'll let you carry on and listen to our conversation. Enjoy.

Sally Green 0:27
I'm now thinking I'm going to suggest to all my clients that they do an audio newsletter.

Sam Birkett 0:33
Well, it's an interesting way of doing it because I mean, you might save initially Oh, well, you know, but everyone always gets an email and that's what they do. We can monitor what they're doing and blah, blah, blah and say, Well, yes. As you say, going back. I mean, actually, this is a wider question, isn't it about sort of, yeah, the purposes of things? And is this actually delivering on the goals you have? Or is it a... Actually, we should do a whole podcast on we've always done it this way.

Sally Green 0:55
Absolutely.

Sam Birkett 0:56
We've always done it this way. How often do you hear that feels like, well, we've always done it this way. So great. Well, fine. Great. You have and you know, you're spending 10 hours a month on doing it. Brilliant. What is it doing for you? Do you know? Well, no, we've no idea. Okay, I know, I'm not gonna go off into a massive tangent on that one if I possibly can. But yeah, it's trying new things. But it's interesting. I mean, because you're going into a client perhaps saying, Well, you know, how do you communicate with your audience? How do you build relationships? If it's a kind of business as well, where there's quite a complex product, perhaps, and it's certainly my sort of area, it's looking at slightly more complex products, multifaceted products is not as easy to just say, like a handbag, here we go. It's fantastic and it's £50, or whatever it might be. There's lots of questions. There's lots of topics, which need exploring, and you'd need more depth on them and actually, a lot of the time getting that access to somebody who is the expert in house who does this stuff. Explaining things in layman's terms can actually be far more straightforward than talking it through. I mean, perhaps something like that might be more editing afterwards to ensure you don't sort of go off down any real rabbit holes. But yeah, exactly. But I think actually, as you say, it's a good way of doing that and then you would, you would very clearly say, well, the podcast is here to, you know, nurture, and keep our buyers, or potential buyers, and referrers, and everybody else in our audience interested and motivated and building relationships with us. Because of course, as well, if you're basing this on, you know, this expert is going to work on this project with you should you wish to go forward with it, you have to build up that rapport and have that personal connection, whether you like it or not at some stage, and I know it works differently across different cultures. But perhaps you can access personality and make more of a connection with somebody in that way, video or podcast, but more people are comfortable perhaps with a podcast, to begin with, at least rather than getting themselves on video and actually, I think it should say, videos, it feels it's more prepared, it's more polished, it's more corporate.

Sally Green 3:07
And it probably should be more prepared, more polished and more corporate, if you're going to do a video on your website, for instance. But I think podcasts. The other thing is that we all want our audience to trust us and feel that really strong sense of trust. And although video is probably the strongest way to do that, because they can see you and they, you know, you've got my smart suit on or whatever the product is. But I think, perpetual podcast where we're constantly saying maybe once a week or once a month, however often you do it, there is somebody talking to you about what they're doing and why they're doing it and showing you how they're developing thoughts, ideas, builds trust, then you think, oh, right, blah, they do that and then they're doing that and they also do this. It's that constant kind of whispering in people's ears, that can build trust as well.

Sam Birkett 3:57
Yeah, exactly. And I think it's... I mean, it's interesting actually is working with academics that I have many times in the past, it's quite often come up as an idea people have said and specifically I remember vividly, someone was asking me about what how can I connect more as an expert in this field? How can I connect more with my audience? And so initially, they actually sort of revisited their LinkedIn profile because it's been left in a dusty corridor somewhere for years and they, they picked it up went, Oh, I'm actually going to write some up-to-date relevant stuff about who I am or what I do. So they did that initially, it started to connect a lot more people who said how can I access more? How can I reach out more? And how can I show myself working with this expert and this expert to produce amazing results, which is our joint expertise that we come to we bring to bear on your potential projects? And they suggested like sort of a coffee or fireside chat or a coffee table chat and immediately the words they were using was coming from somebody who is usually terribly prepared. It's terribly, you know, we need to justify everything and back it all up and dotted evidence-based and really careful whether, if we're doing this on an audio podcast or something, I could just talk about it with these people and that's a really lovely way of making that accessible again.

Sally Green 5:18
Moreover, a lot of people are really nervous about being on film, or video, I can't, I just can't do that. Whereas audio, there is no filmy bit so you haven't got to worry about getting your hair right and painting your nails and all that kind of nonsense, or worry that you're fidgeting, which I do all the time when people tell me not to fidget. Nobody knows on audio, nobody knows that I'm constantly swivelling, my swivel chair, and all those things that irritate people. So it's a safer space to put yourself out there.

Sam Birkett 5:48
Exactly. I mean, for instance, no one would know right now that you're actually on a unicycle. I mean, I don't know how you've managed to do it, keep it up the whole way through.

Sally Green 5:55
Years of training, and you yourself on one leg on your surfboard. I'm yet to reach those levels.

Sam Birkett 6:01
Hey, I've got great balance, what can I say? It's just the way it goes. But I mean, I think we're very good. The way we manage to carry on...

Sally Green 6:09
And edit out all the noises that all this machinery makes.

Sam Birkett 6:12
Yeah, it's extraordinary. Extraordinary. But yeah, I think yeah, there's definitely, it's a lower barrier, isn't it for people. They just have a sort of a sense of, okay, well, yep, that's okay. I'm happy to do that, and then dip their toe in. I mean, the number of people we've interviewed in the past, who said, Oh, my goodness, I've never been on this, or I've never done anything like this before, there's a bit of trepidation. But then I think everyone we then interviewed and spoke with, they just it becomes just a normal conversation. They forget almost the fact that they're being interviewed and I suppose part of that is the fact that you know, so many of us have got used to speaking into microphones and, you know, having more or less sort of AV audiovisual recording in various ways in the last two years. So I suppose there's more of a landscape now isn't there for people who are comfortable with technology to a certain degree.

Sally Green 7:00
People are happy, I mean most podcasts, I've never done a podcast where I couldn't see the people, I think they might not difficult, but if you can't see the people who you're talking to it that make very slightly makes the conversation a bit more stilted, very slightly, or there are big gaps between this between what people say, because someone will speak and the thinking, has he finished should I speak I don't want to interrupt. So you get all that kind of problem. So if you can see somebody, it's easier, but I think we've all got very used to sitting around each other's kitchen tables to have a chat and a cup of tea and that's what it feels like, really, that's what I hope our meanders do, you think that we kind of invite people in for tea, sit down and have a chat about something about a subject that we can all agree on, or disagree on, hopefully.

Sam Birkett 7:43
Yeah, definitely. That's it, isn't it? It's very much that again, the word natural keeps coming to my mind, this is a natural discussion and something that you can dip into and see where the meandering, where the conversation goes. But it's that it is that personable point and I suppose that comes back to this relationship building and what I was thinking about in terms of, I keep saying to freelancers, but freelancers, small businesses, in particular business owners, perhaps when they're starting out, like the handbag shop, they think, Well, I'm not gonna do a podcast about this, but, but perhaps if they then try it, they could see where it goes. Because if they want to build relationships with an audience, then it's a great way of actually starting to establish that and I think various people have sort of started perhaps doing that of this last period. But it's also I think, an important point to make is that it's about embracing failure. As I've said, in previous podcasts, it's like, if you did start something, you're freelance, you think I'm gonna go do a podcast, I'm gonna talk about this and if you do, I don't know, say you've got I suppose most, a lot of times, it's like, how many make it past the 20th episode or the 50th Episode? And how many have got the steam to go ahead, but if it doesn't, this thing I read before we started was like, you know, if you don't, if it doesn't carry on, don't sweat, it's fine. You know, if that comes to an end, it comes to natural end.

Sally Green 9:04
It's like any bit of content, you can reuse it, you don't just think, Oh, well, that's it, then that's I can't ever use that. Again. It's like anything, it's relatively Greenleaf. And you can just cut it up into different chunks, you can post the whole podcast again, because not everyone will have heard it first time. I mean podcasts are just the same as any other piece of collateral. Not everybody sees it straight off or hears it straight off. So it's an endless piece of very valuable collateral.

Sam Birkett 9:34
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's very much you say it's sort of yeah, particular topics, in particular, are that are ones which you know, stand out you can oh, gosh, yes, member spoke about that and then I mean, even I know a number of podcasters they refuse to almost listen back to themselves at all. They don't like that somebody like an actor or something isn't saying, I can't watch, I can't possibly watch Oh, it's got to be dire darling, it's gonna die a little inside. But it's actually I find sometimes when perhaps I've been needing to talk about something with somebody or you know, pitching to a new client, for example and then sometimes I'll go back to your back catalogue and think, oh, gosh, yeah, just remember that something not necessarily something I've said, but perhaps something someone else has said or you said, you know, oh, that's quite a nice idea, actually.

Sally Green 10:25
I mean, Sam, you do some really good individual ones that you'll go on a walk and talk and I find those fantastic, because that's like, being with you as a kind of, you can't. It's like secretly being a little fairy on your, on your shoulder as you're walking along, listening to your words of wisdom and I love those that wonderful because you do feel like you're kind of eavesdropping almost on your thoughts and that's great.

Sam Birkett 10:54
Yeah, I mean, those are interesting, because when I first started doing those, again, it's probably a bit of a lockdown thing, I suppose. So what we'd started the podcast and then I noticed a few people had done things like that initially, I thought, Oh, well, I won't do that. Because it's like, you know, it's my lunchtime stone. I'm constantly walking around, oh gosh, thinking of this, thinking of that and sort of have an internal monologue and I thought, actually, I know, maybe I should record some these things. It's quite interesting, even for my own. Because interestingly enough, I've started instead of keeping this year as bit of a New Year's resolution, I said, I wanted to keep a bit of a journal about how the year was going and I'm just really bad at sticking to writing physically writing down in a diary and keeping a diary. So I thought I'd say what I'm very comfortable with, it was pretty easy and takes just five minutes, is record myself talking about certain aspects of things are going on at the moment, which is a little bit odd, because you should go to your photo stream and you see you've recorded with videos yourself about to talk, you think that's really weird, isn't it? Is that me doing a video for a podcasts or was it very odd, but I always preface at the beginning and say this is a personal journal entry, whatever, you know, so it's bit like Captain's Log in a way. But...

Sally Green 12:04
Will we start having to call you Picard?

Sam Birkett 12:06
Absolutely. Yeah. So I'll make it so. But the ones, as you say, the often those walks, they're sort of that somebody just comes to the top of my head. And I think, Oh, that's interesting and it's almost for my own benefit to try and process an idea or something I've seen and thought, Oh, what do I think of that? And I think a lot of those ones, funnily enough, I mean, we talked about the whole it's very much welcoming and relationship building and giving people a cuddle, walking them into your house and your cup of tea. It's those sort of subjects I tend to find, which are more to do with sort of personal, you know, I suppose mental health things, but also just, you know, the typical dilemmas we go through on a day-to-day basis, as marketers, and as you know, freelancers, small business owners, for example. And those are things that really surface for me at that point and initially when I did it, I thought people are gonna think I'm just crazy walking around, holding my phone doing this, and then I know they'll think I'm on a video call. It's okay. It's alright, on FaceTime. So I'm quite comfortable doing that now and a lot of stuff. I don't bother using it, sort of chuck it away. It's not great or try and re-record it. But it is again, it comes from a genuine place, very genuine place about wanting to share this and say anybody else thinks this or feels this.

Sally Green 13:23
Absolutely, yeah, I think I think it has I think the world has changed and if we just look 10 years ago, people would never have probably, it would be like 10 years ago, me writing you an email about my deepest thoughts, and then sending it to an email list. You think, oh, that's a bit weird. This person needs certifying. Really, she probably shouldn't be out. But now we are more happy with you know, so I'm having a really bad day to day this has gone wrong, that's gone and blah-blah and that will be less weird. Somehow hearing it makes it less strange.

Sam Birkett 13:57
Yeah, that's fascinating actually. That analogy, that comparison to yeah, what would you do? I mean, even before it before, he was like, I'm gonna write a letter to all of my closest friends and family and a load of people I don't know. And a load of people I have vague acquaintance with and basically just explain about, you know, how I feel about things you say. It's fascinating. I mean, you know, mediums which allow us to do this in a way but also something that becomes I say acceptable, or just, you know, sort of normalised, you think, Okay, well, is that helpful? I mean, because when I first posted any of those, walk-and-talk kind of ones, I mean, sometimes I'll just cut it as an audio. Other times, I'll do it as a video to share and perhaps post on LinkedIn or something you think, oh, gosh, is this a bit sort of self-indulgent? And is anybody actually going to, you know, respond to it or go okay, well, we'll see at the top here. Okay, Sam, who knows? But actually, I had some really good responses from people and other people say, Oh, yes, yeah, we'd love you to, you know, hear more about what you think about this because, and they will always be those people who will never be comfortable with discussing that stuff and putting it out on the internet, but if it encourages conversation perhaps for someone who you know, and there's people who I know, who then came back and had a subsequent real conversation face-to-face with me about topics that I touched on. And I think that's really valuable actually if it sort of, you know, opens up people to the discussion as well and clearly, going back to the commercial aspect of this as well in terms of, you know, brand building, personal brand building and for your business. If it's opening up conversations with people or getting other people talking about you to other people, in the best network networking methodology, then that's interesting, then immediately if we're doing a podcast about podcasting, or getting a podcast about I don't know, marketing strategy, someone to someone else's, I listen to this to your marketing strategy, particularly for I don't know, handbags. I've got a handbag shop. Well, that could be useful. Maybe I should chat to those guys. So definitely. So from that point of view, of course.

Sally Green 16:09
And it's, it's like any kind of networking, and this is, in a way it's networking, grand networking, it's not just going into a room with 20 people, this is us going into a room, hopefully, hundreds of people listening to us. And yes, we do want to hear back from you getting anyone to reply is more difficult. But we do genuinely want to hear back from you, anybody who's listening to this We want to know what you think we are interested, honest. But I think it's it's as much as saying, properly understand what I do. Because if I just wrote you a letter saying your I do marketing strategy, and I take you from goal to a measurement. Yeah. And what does that mean exactly? What the hell does she actually do? No idea. Whereas actually, when you listen to us kind of talking about bits and stuff, and things and ways we might think you're much more likely to go, yeah, that she does genuinely sound like that might be quite fun to work with them. And Sam will say, you know, I, Sam is much, much better at doing the technical end of things than me. Film webinar, podcast. When I hear Sam talking about I'm thinking, Oh, he makes that sound so easy and it's a really, really fantastic way to market things to make people think, Oh, I feel relaxed. I don't have to think, Oh, I've got to go and do this horrible thing. I'll do it on a Friday afternoon. So perhaps it might get cancelled. So it's a nice, relaxed, smooth wave, transitioning people to feel differently about the techie bits.

Sam Birkett 17:34
Yeah, exactly. And it's that, again, it does relate again to this. As you say, if you were taught, if you imagine if you're talking something through so you're doing a pitch to somebody or a networking event. Yeah, you're saying about what you do and right, that's interesting. So tell me more and then you're going to enter into a conversation of some sort, you want to put people at ease, but also say, look, yeah, these are options, these things you could explore and talk about and I think it's also, I suppose relating to the style, the way in which you work. So for if you know, small business owners or freelancers or doing more podcasting, I suppose you want to get across, obviously a bit of your personality will naturally come across, but also the way in which you work and the themes, because I noticed, I mean, we clearly have a number of themes, I'd say one of the biggest themes we seem to always return to is about the interface between technology and the human being, and obviously planning and budgets and things like that. So it's very interesting and referring again, to listening back to back episodes in terms of what we talk about, but also the themes that pervade throughout is interesting because I think then that it almost naturally gives you a bit of a USP to what it is, you're if you're talking about the thing you do, which we do, then you think oh, okay, that's from my own mouth and perhaps it's other people we've talked about on the podcast, we've asked questions which are angled that way and so I think that's an interesting thing as well, when you're doing from a business point of view rather than a, because of course, there are all these podcasts out there, which could be to do, obviously, my word military history, or gardening, or it could be to do with plasticine modelmaking. You know, it's...

Your other passion.

Yeah, that's the thing. I there's all of those things, which... that'd be fantastic wouldn't it, having a Morph character here. But those things which are and put certainly lockdown, people were probably searching for content and community. Because that's the other thing is you say, I mean, the fact that if you get responses, get people to ask questions, and as I say, in the sort of the model that the kind of perfect model of the podcast I regularly listen to, it has gone through those phases and now it is actually a genuine community, which is all developed on the back of a couple of blokes talking and it literally was in their kitchen once a week, and that now you've got hundreds of people prepared to pay money to come and you know, Listen to them and with each other and create subgroups. And so there is very much that community angle, I think, as well, which is the sort of I don't know, I mean, it's kind of the, where it's that the Nirvana for the best state for a podcast audience to get towards perhaps not...

Sally Green 20:15
We could now draw, I mean not personally, but draw Matt Eastland-Jones back into this conversation a wee bit, because when you and I started, it was technically very, not basic, but we started the easiest way we possibly could do, which was to record it, just the audio on Zoom and I live in a very strange, I live in the middle of Oxford, you'd think I'd have a marvellous internet connection, it's rubbish. So obviously, sometimes I just disappear, you'll hear, if you listen to our back catalogue, very occasionally, I'll be saying something very interesting. And then I just won't be saying anything at all for some time. So we started like that, and it was fine. We didn't feel embarrassed, we didn't feel bothered about it. We just were very happy to put ourselves out there and just talk and chat and Sam is the most patient edit-y person in the world and was very happy to take some of the worst bits of crap out, which made it very smooth and wonderful and we just decided, actually, since we actually enjoy doing this, and we like spending our time talking to you and each other about these subjects, perhaps we ought to a) take the effort away from Sam having to cut out Sally's rubbish bits, as now we're going to give it to Matt Eastland-Jones, who does a much better job than we do at making what we do, not palatable, but more professional and much easier to listen to and he also does incredibly useful things and gives us little radio-grammes that we can post and you don't have to do it expensively. But once you get comfortable with it, and are thinking yes, this is our podcast, which we are now rather proud of, and like doing and then you might want to up steps, but you don't have to start at the top. It's not as if you don't have to start making an EMI film when you're just trying to do a video for your podcast.

Sam Birkett 22:10
Exactly. Yeah and I think well, we said we must get Matt on as an interviewee or a fellow discussant. You know, we must get him on for a chat. You know, I think because Matt, yeah Matt's Story Ninety-Four is, check it out storyninetyfour.com - I think I'm correct in saying if you look up Story Ninety-Four, Matt Eastland-Jones, then yeah, he's got a great studio hasn't he in Oxford where you can record and I was invited on another podcast. So were you of course, and that's where we started to see him working his magic and because that is the other part of this as well, isn't it around sort of easy, say professional production and you can go, you know, I suppose various grades, various steps you can take, but it's also just the, as you said, we started out kind of like, right, I mean, I remember distinctly because it's during COVID, the kids were at school, at school at home, rather and so they were doing home learning downstairs, my wife's tutoring in one room and then I was actually in my daughter's bedroom, I think for some of them, because it was the furthest point away in the house. So it's a bit quieter, and there's lots of fluffy toys in there, it's good for sort of dampening the sound. I'm sure Matt will correct me on this and say, Oh, my goodness, what you do, but it was manageable. But then you get to this point of then, you know, if you're having production schedule, you know, having the questions asked him, you know, well, again, who are looking to reach, how often do you need to be recording and then all of the technical support that goes in there to get the best that you can, because you wanna get the best for your input and your time, of course, don't do as well, because if you is heartbreaking if you start podcasting, and then you can have a record on here, get my iPhone out or record a nice audio file, and then you realise afterwards that you could hardly use any of it or on a regular basis, or there's a problem or whatever it might be, you know, and it's knowing about distribution channels and things like that, as well, and having that covered for you is a really good thing to, you know, to have sorted for you, and I think it's also I don't know, I mean, I suppose the industry of podcasts, if you'd call it a full industry is still at that point of, you know, it's developing as well, isn't it? So I think it's quite an exciting, I say frontier, I mean, I suppose yeah, podcasting as a thing has been around for quite a long time, I guess. But then it to me as a consumer and a producer of podcasts, it does seem as if we've entered into a new phase which is quite exploratory and I think perhaps there's new things who can be done with them as well and an experts like Matt obviously very well placed to help advise on that and where perhaps you can go with it as well which is great.

Sally Green 24:49
I think having a professional who can see that actually, yes, you do face-to-face, but actually, maybe it'd be better if you had five of you there or one of you who's taking the lead. All of those kinds of things that you might be people get worried about, oh, I don't know what I'm doing and it can be quite useful to have someone who doesn't know what they're doing to advise.

Sam Birkett 25:11
Yeah, definitely, definitely. And I mean, I think it'll be great in the next period we have now because we sort of took a bit of a no, not a complete break for Christmas we wanted last on and we were very busy and we sort of, you know, we let things sort of have a natural lull and relaxation around our publishing schedule, but I think now as we said, you know, we are sort of fully committed to him pushing forward this year and actually I was just thinking myself that it's really exciting idea of lots of people we can get on and talk to and it's great to be able to do a lot of this from the comfort of your own home but of course, getting out and about it's nice as well. I mean, just before we started you said in your study about we should do a literal meander, down the Thames perhaps or the Windrush in Oxfordshire.

Sally Green 26:02
You know, we could rent a punter and get ourselves punted down the Thames you see, that'd be nice, little bit of background sploshing and that proves that we do both live in Oxford-ish.

Sam Birkett 26:14
Yes, exactly. Yes, we've got to get some genuine stuff in their house, like, you know, top tower and you have some of the bells and Oxford going off and, you know, it would be all very, very natural and sound of you know, popping of champagne corks.

Sally Green 26:27
And Sam lives in a very beautiful Cotswold village. So we'd have to go in, we could sit by cricket pitch and wood on willow, little knock noises, gentle claps, you know?

Sam Birkett 26:39
It's got soundscapes now, if you got out there recording soundscapes and so who knows? Who knows? Well, I think we've kind of we are meandering off into some weird *inaudible* now. But no, no, no, not at all. Not at all. But I was thinking, Yeah, I think we've sort of covered a good amount of ground haven't we really in terms of, you know, purposes of podcast, why people do them, how they can be used, and I know we haven't covered much of the technicalities, or the anything in terms of statistics vary. But if we do follow this up with another one, which will be great, and getting Matt on to interview, for example, then we can explore to this and test whether what we've been saying makes any sense, is true or not and perspective from his perspective, because obviously, he works with all of these podcasters, who were doing this stuff week in week out.

Sally Green 27:31
And we hope we've encouraged some of you to maybe think, oh, yeah, we'll have a go. That seems not too difficult and I can genuinely see a purpose for doing this. This could actually give my customers something they actually want. They want me, not just my product.

Sam Birkett 27:45
Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. That's it. And I think it'll be, yeah, interesting to see how many people do you know, try to... I mean, that's an interesting question straightaway, isn't it for how many new people have started or looking to start podcasts? How many have done it for a bit and then, you know, they've ended or perhaps did it for a while, stopped and then go, oh, no, actually, I can do this again. You know, it's probably one of those things where people perhaps pick it up and put it down. But again, all those questions where you can explore I suppose, that's certainly interesting. But yes, well, thanks very much. That was...

Sally Green 28:15
No thank you very much too!

Sam Birkett 28:18
If anyone out there has been motivated to ask a question or to perhaps, you know, even send a question to us and we can ask it to Matt if you're interested in podcasting in particular, or that's an anything you're interested in basically about brand marketing, then you can find us at meanderspods@gmail.com send us an email or if you just look us up, marketing meanders online, you'll find us on Twitter, Facebook, you can find the two of us on LinkedIn, of course, can't you as well. So always watering holing around there and doing all sorts. But yes, thank you very much, everyone. Thank you, Sally,

Sally Green 28:54
Good to see you.

Sam Birkett 28:55
We'll see you all next time I guess, I say see you all, we'll reach out to you, continue to build a relationship with you. Yes, yes, we'll commune with you next time. Thanks very much.

Sally Green 29:07
Bye.