Promote Your Podcast to Unleash Its Potential with Minh Le

Transcript: Episode 11 of Brandcasting with Relationary Marketing

Episode Title: Promote Your Podcast To Unleash Its Potential with Minh Le 

Minh Le: Not every company’s going to have thousands of people that they can engage, but even if it’s 20 or 50 folks internally that you can help get the word out, that’s a huge help. And, who knows, those 20 or 50 could have two or three friends and that grows to hundreds and hundreds. I think that’s just how you get the snowball effect rolling.

Clark Buckner: That was Minh Le, Vice President, at DVL Seigenthaler a Finn Partners Company. He has communications experience in a variety of industries, including consumer products and services, travel and hospitality, telecommunications, healthcare, and financial services. Minh joins us to discuss the importance of properly and effectively promoting your podcast. He also gives us an inside look at the promotion strategy for the official podcast of Jack Daniel’s, Around the Barrel. Minh also offers his tips for writing episode titles and descriptions that will grab your audience’s attention instantly.

Clark Buckner: Welcome to Brandcasting with Relationary Marketing, the show all about how to build a professional, branded podcast that delivers on your business’ goals. I’m your host, Clark Buckner, partner and co-founder here at Relationary. We’re a turnkey podcast production agency for B2B Content Marketing. We help brands and agencies create engaging content to establish thought leadership, nurture key relationships and promote events. For a recap and transcript of this episode and to download our free five step guide to building a branded podcast, head on over to relationarymarketing.com/podcast. Now, let’s jump in.

Minh Le: Hello. I am a Director at DVL Seigenthaler. I’ve been with the agency for about 6 1/2, 7 or so years now, from Nashville, Tennessee. I went to school at Murfreesboro, MTSU at Murfreesboro and then moved back to Nashville and started working since then.

Clark Buckner: I didn’t know that. So you actually been with them ever since you graduated.

Minh Le: Yeah, I started as an intern after grad school and I was lucky enough to stay on after that and fast forward 6 1/2 or so years now, and sitting in the studio with Clark.

Clark Buckner: Yeah, “Friendly Minh Le” is your Instagram handle and you really are, man. You’ve been so much fun to work with, these last couple years.

Minh Le: Likewise.

Clark Buckner: And we really want to use this as a chance to just hear not only your story, but talk a little about your journey through podcasting your journey through content marketing and also using podcasts for content marketing. There’s a lot of things we could talk about with you. So how about we start from the beginning, if you could rewind us back of just how you got into using podcasting as a marketing/storytelling tool?

Minh Le: Sure. Sure. Sure. So as a consumer podcast, probably I’m relatively new to the podcasting side in terms of consuming it, maybe 4 or 5 years or so, just, listening, podcaster and road trips and obviously SIRIO was a big one. I think that’s a big one that introduces a lot of people to podcasting.

Clark Buckner: You’re actually right.

Minh Le: Going from SIRIO listening to different true crime shows that make road trips a lot easier to do. With that as a background, I always kind of knew what podcasting was. But then for Jack Daniel’s, how we got into it is every year we sit through and do a brainstorming session with the intern team in terms of how do we continue to get the Jack Daniel’s story and the message out there?

Minh Le: It’s more than 150 year old company. And before I started working on it, you really think that with brand like Jack Daniel’s really sells itself and to an extent it does, but on the PR and marketing side, you really have to dig down and find, what is it that’s new about it every year? And how do you go about telling stories in a new way, new and interesting way? And for Jack Daniel’s, one of the things we brainstormed, the team brought up was podcasting.

Minh Le: And so for us, podcasting is an excellent tool inside of the brand’s toolbox. So obviously they reach out to consumers and fans and friends of the brand in a number of different ways. And podcasting is a new way for us to do that, to reach our audience and be where they are. Jack Daniel’s audience is, they say, the brand uses a lot of acronyms, and they say the audience is LDA to D and D, which means Legal Drinking Age to Damn Near Dead.

Minh Le: So, the idea is there’s so many different…

Clark Buckner: There’s so many people.

Minh Le: So many people who drink Jack Daniel’s and enjoy Jack Daniels’ and from the younger folks to the older folks, we need to be where they are in terms of consuming media and consuming information and stories. So whether it’s an older generation or older population who’s consuming media, traditional media, or on the younger side who, very well versed on the technology side and they’re consuming stories through podcasting, the goal for Jack Daniel’s is to be there in every situation. So for us, podcasting was a new and interesting way to tell the stories in a different medium to reach even more people.

Clark Buckner: It was the first big step because it was actually the first major spirits brand to have their own podcast.

Minh Le: Yeah. So when we’re doing research, to the best of our knowledge, it is the first major spirits brand to have its podcast, like you mentioned. And for us being the first mover in the space has been very advantageous. You only get to be new once, right? And so when we launched a podcast, it gave us an excellent opportunity to tell that story, to be the first player in this space on the podcasting side. And so now you see that manifest through different news articles or stories or whatever when other brands are jumping on the trend now, and they’re starting their own podcast, a lot of times when journalists write brand X, Y, Z as has a new podcast, Jack Daniel’s is often mentioned in those stories, as well as being one of the first.

Clark Buckner: They’re doing it too.

Minh Le: Yeah, exactly.

Clark Buckner: Wow. I like how you talk about the toolbox and how you have different tools available to carry the message. And I can’t even imagine how much you’re doing with, this is one of your main accounts you’re working on, right? Jack Daniel’s, but they’re doing so many different things and this is one of the vehicles to use. So when you rewind it back, you also said you can only be new once. So I’m curious what seemed to work really well from what you remember, building excitement around a launch, of a podcast? You can only be new once. What advice would you go back and give yourself, or maybe give to other folks thinking about starting a podcast with a brand or a big company?

Minh Le: For us after the brainstorming, we got to go ahead from the brand team to explore this idea and completely new to them, completely new to us. So, start it from ground zero. And we started with building a strategy and a launch strategy for first, how do you get this thing done? But then once it’s done, how do you get it out there to masses and to generate buzz, like you mentioned? And for us, it was engaging our media friends and influencers and putting a PR strategy behind it too. So, as we were nearing launch we’re posting teasers or we’re sending teasers out to journalists to get their in interest and attention. And then when it finally launches, obviously we send the link out in the video and the messages and all the assets out to our friends and introduce them to the podcast and invite them to listen. And that luckily drew enough attention from the industry trades, where they wrote stories about it. They asked to interview some folks from our team about it, and it actually even drew a lot of interest from journalists wanting to be on the podcast, which was a great opportunity to bring in outside guests, create more content, but also cross promote as well.

Clark Buckner: Yeah, that’s so cool. All right. So now let’s zoom it in, we’ve talked big picture, but now if you could get a little bit tactical on just the approach that you’ve seen that has worked best, and this is going to be along the lines of publishing an actual episode. So description, title, blog, show notes, just all those kinds of phrases, SEO, what are some of the best practices that you’ve found? Not only on the actual content that gets sustainably published, but also from a workflow standpoint of, that you’re dealing with a lot of people with just one episode, what does that end product, not including the audio, what’s the best way to make that look and feel?

Minh Le: Yeah, so I think one of the best things about our relationship with Jack Daniel’s, they really trust us as a partner to develop that content and to set what it is that the episode’s going to be to draw the most views or listens, right? And so, on the episode title, we like to be as creative as possible. That’s when someone’s scrolling through Apple Podcast or Google Podcast or whatever it might be, that’s one of the first things they see. So, for the episode title you want to be as a descriptive as possible to give them an understanding of what the episode’s going to be about. But I think we also try to use it as a way to catch your attention. We think of it as a email subject line, for instance, or a news article title. You want to be representative, but how can you also capture attention? And maybe that’s a clickbat-y title, or maybe that’s something with the host name or another nugget of information that when someone stumbles across that catches their attention, it’s like, huh, that’s kind interesting. What’s that all about? And so I think, similarly for the description as well you want to be descriptive about the episode, but what are those one or two or three sentences that really captures the conversation, but also gets people interested in wanting to know more and they’ll want to click through.

Clark Buckner: I like the email subject line example. And it’s also important to call out that, especially with podcasts, you have a lot of limited real estate. And when you’re in an app, you don’t want to just put name of show, episode number, and then maybe the description. Because you see a lot, there’s a lot of podcasts out there that putting the episode number in your title. Not that we want to get too technical right now, but just treat it like it’s an email subject line. Now we’re seeing in the industry, it’s a lot more developed where episode numbers and all this kind of specifics are already built in now. So, maybe that’s too much too in the weeds, but…

Minh Le: No, but I think that makes sense, because instead of episode information on Tennessee Whiskey we go the route of, what’s Tennessee Whiskey? So it’s saying the same thing, but in a different manner, that draws attention, that gets the wheels turning in your head.

Clark Buckner: I really like that. Any other advice on just how marketers and general content marketers can better promote their podcasts on, let’s say, social media.

Minh Le: Yeah. Engaging with your guests, whoever comes on the podcast, making it as easy as possible for them to share. Whether that’s sending them the right link or giving them recommended post copy or images. Obviously you don’t want to dictate what they can and cannot post, but, if you can make it as easy as possible, a lot of times they will take your suggestions. But then also engaging your audiences on social as well, right? So depending on your podcast, maybe it’s doing a Q and A and incorporating that into your podcast from your social media. Or even asking your followers what topics are they interested in and what may or may not work and get a feel for that.

Clark Buckner: On social media?

Minh Le: Yeah.

Clark Buckner: That’s cool. I know we’ve also set up an email address that we’ve sometimes plugged in the audio and that’s been something that can be a good place to get that direct feedback too.

Minh Le: Yeah. And, too, engaging your internal audience to help promote the show or the podcast, right? And a lot of times internally, that’s your best advocate. Those are your best advocates. For Jack Daniels, for instance, we have ton of workers throughout Brown-Forman, globally, who listen to the show and are really interested in too. But then also down at Lynchburg, we’ve heard from a number of different tour guides who say that they love the podcast and the content behind it. And they even pitch us episode topics. So having that level of engagement from your internal audiences obviously helps grow the brand. But then that creates natural ambassadors to help promote beyond that as well.

Clark Buckner: I love that extra layer. And I know a lot of this dialogue we’re having right now is about external and social media and how to promote it with email subject line, thought processes. But, the internal marketing cannot be overlooked. Even if you’re a smaller organization, of course, in this case, Brown-Forman, big company, but, that’s a really good call out. Have you found, is there a different way you approach internal messaging about, Hey, we have a podcast now?

Minh Le: Yeah. I think it really depends on your company, right? And the company culture and how you receive news. But one of the first things we did, upon launching, was put together an email blast that could go out to the company and encourage them to listen, rate, subscribe.

Clark Buckner: That was a huge help. Out of the gate, I have really noticed that you had a lot of those positive comments and that feels good. Gets that good social proof.

Minh Le: Absolutely. And not every, company’s going to have thousands of people that they can engage, but even if it’s 20 or 50 folks internally that you can help get the word out, that’s a huge help. And, who knows those 20 or 50 could have two or three friends and that grows to hundreds and hundreds. And then I think that’s just how you get the snowball effect rolling.

Clark Buckner: I love it. Something else we were talking about earlier is this idea of a toolbox as a content marketer, and this is one vehicle to use. I’ve got one more clip I want to play for us. This is Audrey Mardavich, Managing Producer at Radiotopia. And they just do, of course, so many amazing shows. And so she’s talking about the importance of not only getting listeners, but deepening your connection with listeners.

Audrey Mardavich: To us, we think so much about community and like how can we kind of gather people to become, you know, listeners, but then also like take a step beyond that and share the show with their friends, donate, come to our live shows like it’s like, we’re always trying to deepen that connection. I think more than we’re trying to spread it out far and wide, you know.

Clark Buckner: Any thoughts you have on that?

Minh Le: I think that’s perfect. And for Jack, I think that fits really well into our goals and what we’re trying to do. If we can interest maybe a few folks from this podcast to really go down the Lynchburg and really experience it, to me that’s enough. Not everything we do has to reach millions and millions and millions of people. But if we can reach a few people the right way and have them take action, I think that’s a win.

Clark Buckner: That’s really good. Let’s talk more about success you’ve seen with podcasting, but just to talk just another moment about what you just said. It’s not to be taken for granted, the listen numbers or the download numbers. Because the consumption of how someone listens to a podcast is just different than someone passively scrolling, maybe watching a first 30 seconds of a video. They’re typically have earbuds in, they’re enjoying something, they’re doing an activity that’s passive, so they can be listening to a podcast which gives them a lot longer to listen to something. So, I remember also from the beginning, you and Molly and the team that we get to work with over on your side of things, at DVLS, I remember that you shared with us this, I guess like Jack Daniel’s brand guide, but basically the main takeaway is, it’s about building friends and it’s less about looking at someone as a data point. These are just, you’re building more friends with Jack or deepening that relationship.

Minh Le: Yeah, absolutely. There’s some tactics that you want to reach as wide of an audience as possible, where if you put an ad out, for instance, and you want to get millions of views for a few seconds versus a podcast where you can get a couple thousand, couple tens of thousand or whatever it might be, listens for 15, 20 minutes, there’s a difference between the two, and that’s not to say one’s right or wrong, but going back to that toolbox analogy where, there’s different tools that accomplish different things. So you just have to know going in that, what you want to get out of a podcast, it’s just inherently different than what you might get from a display ad, for instance.

Clark Buckner: That’s good. So let’s continue that dialogue around success. And I know success has a different type of definition to different people, but what’s one or two ways you’ve seen success in podcasting?

Minh Le: I mentioned the example earlier but, when journalists write about new brands coming into the podcasting space, especially on the spirit side, and I think seeing Jack Daniel’s mentioned among that, I think, is a pretty good validator of success to us and that Jack Daniel’s was…

Clark Buckner: They’re saying good things about it.

Minh Le: Yeah, exactly. Ahead of the trend a little bit. Obviously podcasting has been around for years but, to have brands step in and produce their own podcast is relatively new in the past few years or so. And having Jack talked about in that light, I think, is a big success for us. I think back to internal. Well, one of the things, interestingly we’ve heard from Jack Daniel’s employees and Brown-Forman employees is that, we found that Around the Barrel is a huge help in terms of brand history and onboarding folks.

Clark Buckner: Man, I did not know this.

Minh Le: Yeah. Yeah. So, on the Jack Daniel’s side they rotate assignments every 5, 10 years or so. So a lot of times we have new brand ambassadors or brand managers who roll onto Jack Daniel’s. And as you can imagine, there’s a lot to take in, a lot of history to learn within their first couple months or whatever. So we’ve actually heard that a lot of employees rely on the podcast…

Clark Buckner: I love it.

Minh Le: When they have downtime, just like to understand the history.

Clark Buckner: I’m laughing this because it’s like a pleasant surprise. You know what I mean?

Minh Le: We created this to be mainly external content for fans, consumers, those friends of Jack.

Clark Buckner: Friends of Jack.

Minh Le: But an interesting byproduct has been, it’s been a great resource internally for brand history and onboarding. Also, anecdotally, when you hear comments from employees or from visitors down in Lynchburg about the podcast and how interested they are to learn more stories or if they say to us we get some comments on via email or social media about how so and so’s story is really interesting or their perspective is really interesting, that they hadn’t really thought about. I think those types of comments really are the barometer for success for us. Like you mentioned there are metrics, downloads, listens or whatever, but, I think the space is so new that those metrics don’t mean as much as metrics in other parts of the marketing world do, yet. So, I think anecdotal and subjective measures are really important right now.

Clark Buckner: When you hear from the people you care about most, that they’re enjoying it, that’s certainly an indicator you’re doing something right.

Minh Le: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Clark Buckner: I’m hearing that loud and clear. I love it. Well, Minh, I am just thrilled to get the chance to hang out with you a little bit, talking about Jack Daniel’s, talking podcasting. These are all my favorite things. So anything else that you want to leave us with? Anything else on your mind or on your heart, just as it relates to the work you do and, and all that?

Minh Le: I guess I would say we’ve talked a lot about Jack Daniel’s, which is this internationally known brand. But I think what’s important is that you also don’t have to be this global brand to have a podcast. Whatever budget may be, I think can find a way to do it. You can find a way to get resourceful, leverage your internal networks, your external networks, and leverage the resources that you have already on hand to put this thing together. We work with large brands and small brands. Some are local regional companies and I would probably advocate a podcast strategy for the smallest brands, if that makes sense for them. So I think just knowing too, that you’re not limited by your resources and you don’t have to have million dollar budgets to pull this off.

Clark Buckner: Man. Well said, really good. Podcasting, no matter how big the brand, there are no cheat codes or shortcuts. It’s creating good content consistently, showing up regularly and getting the message out. While you and your team do excellent work, it’s so much fun to work with you, and this is an award winning podcast, we can’t forget that. It’s won a lot of really…

Minh Le: Yeah. It’s been fun. You guys have done a great job too, obviously. So we love working with you guys. So our success is your success.

Clark Buckner: Dude. Well said. All right, well cheers. And I’m looking forward to the future.

Minh Le: Yeah. Cheers. Thanks for having me.

Clark Buckner: Thanks for listening to Brandcasting with Relationary Marketing. We’re a turnkey podcast production agency for Content Marketing. And we’d love to hear from you. For a recap and transcript of this episode and to download our free Five Step Guide to Building a Branded Podcast, visit relationarymarketing.com/podcast. If you enjoyed this content, please follow, rate and review wherever you get your podcast.

Clark Buckner: Are you hungry for more helpful tips on how to build a brand new podcast? Stay on the lookout, because Season 2 of Brandcasting is coming soon. We’ve got a lot in store, including how to use podcasts as part of live events, like conferences, trade shows and special events, all with the goal to promote brand awareness, connect with new customers and amplify the experience for attendees.

Clark Buckner: Brandcasting is a production of Relationary Marketing. This episode was produced by Simon Mack and Executive Producers, me Clark Buckner and Chuck Bryant with editing by Dylan Carrow, music by Jess Grommet and additional production support provided Anthony Luciani, AJ Meyers, Riley Wallace, and Jasmine Meriweather.