Build Your Brand through Trust and Loyalty with Marc Apple

Transcript: Episode 1 of Brandcasting with Relationary Marketing 

Episode Title: Build Your Brand through Trust and Loyalty with Marc Apple 

Marc Apple: That’s one of the best ways to build trust is to get to know you. And that’s what a podcast does. Whether it’s someone’s first listen or their 50th listen to the podcast, we want them to have a know, like and trust factor that just says, “You know what? I got to call this person. I need their help. They’re the ones to help me.”

Clark Buckner: That’s Mark Apple. He’s the founder of Forward Push. They’re an award winning inbound marketing agency. And Mark is discussing the unique authenticity of podcasting and specifically how you can use it to earn the most valuable thing you can get from a potential new client and that’s trust. Mark also explains how the pandemic has been shifting audio listenership and why brands are working harder than ever to keep their audiences engaged, even as content consumption has shifted. Welcome to our very first episode of Brandcasting with Relationary Marketing. The show is all about how to build a professional branded podcast that delivers on your business’s 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.

Clark Buckner: 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.

Marc Apple: I’m the founder of Forward Push, a marketing agency for small businesses and startups.

Clark Buckner: Mark, man, I am really pumped to be talking to you. And it was really important to us to start off our new podcast, Brandcasting, we wanted to start off with you actually. So you’ve been so much fun to work with over the years. We’ve had the chance to collaborate with some of your clients and where we’ve provided our podcasting services and it blends really well with what you do. So super exciting to have you on the show. We’re going to be talking a little bit about podcasting and how it is a smart investment, no matter the circumstances. So first of all, thanks so much for taking the time.

Marc Apple: My pleasure. Good to be here. I appreciate it. Yes, we do have a great partnership. It’s outstanding. A+.

Clark Buckner: A+. So it’s really cool to see you in your zone. And I know you’ve got a really fantastic team built around you. And so, how long have you been doing Forward Push?

Marc Apple: Forward Push has been around for 11 years now. We started in San Francisco in the Bay Area helping out small businesses. And then we put together a team in Nashville about four years ago where you and I first met. And then about three years ago, we moved to Atlanta and we’ve got a team in place here in Atlanta. So for a total of about 11 years helping startups and small businesses across the country.

Clark Buckner: What do you think has been the biggest change you’ve seen over the last decade with marketing small businesses?

Marc Apple: That’s a great question. It’s one that I have to answer almost daily is that how things change so quickly and how people see something that someone else is doing and think they need to do it. For example, a small business owner might hear that they need SEO, but they have no idea what SEO is or what makes up SEO and also what it actually costs. Or I’ll have someone come to us and say they need to do social media or they need to do a podcast. And when you ask why. Why do you need to do this? Sometimes the answer is, “Well, my competitor’s doing it. So I’ve got to do it.” That’s probably the hardest part and the thing that has changed the most is that everything is so visible nowadays. So you literally can sort of quote unquote, “Spy,” on your competitor and see what they’re doing.

Marc Apple: And a lot of small business owners take that to heart and say, “Well, I’ve got to do that too.” And a lot of times that isn’t the right decision. So my job more often than not is educating prospects and our clients about, well, what are the ramifications of doing that? Why is maybe your competitor doing it? What does it look like if we do it? What’s involved? What are the costs? What’s the return on investment? And that changes every single day because the rule makers keep changing the rules every day. And by rule makers, I’m talking about the Google’s of the world, the Facebook’s of the world. When they’re constantly changing the rules on how your posts are seen or how your blog articles are shown or how they get shown in an index when someone does a search. All those rules keep getting changed constantly over and over. And it’s super hard for us to keep up. I can’t imagine what it’s like for a small business owner who actually has a job that isn’t marketing.

Clark Buckner: We’ve seen brands do this too, like large companies. It sounds like that common theme of, hey, they’re doing a podcast. We should do a podcast too. And you have to start with the exploration of why do you actually want to do this? So you’re seeing it in businesses of all sizes over the last decade. People wanting to do things just to do them. And with podcasting getting as big as it’s gotten and it’s continuously growing and data shows us it’s going to continue going up. Even in times of crisis, like we’re seeing right now in the pandemic, it’s just continuously going up. What are some of the tools that you found to be helpful to get closer to that, ‘why’? Something we’ve done is we always say, what is your number one goal, maybe two goals? What are you trying to do? And then that helps us see if podcasting is the right choice.

Marc Apple: One of the things we’re always asking our clients is who they’re trying to reach. Who is their buyer persona, who is their main client? And then taking a look at that buyer persona, that demographic, that person and asking those questions. Well, do they listen to podcast? What social media channels are they on? Would we be better off writing guides and having people download it? There are so many opportunities for people to do marketing, small business, large companies. It doesn’t matter. But if you really don’t go back to sort of that question number one, why are we doing this? And who are we doing at for? Right? There’s the two foundational questions. You kind of can get lost and what happens is you end up spending a lot of money, a lot of effort on things that actually don’t stick. That don’t work.

Clark Buckner: Let me ask you this so as you think about the ‘why’ and you think about who the audience is and you’re exploring these different perspectives with each of your clients. I want to ask you, why did you find podcasting as something to explore? What was your ‘why’? And how did you end up wanting to provide this to your clients? And then maybe we can talk about some of the successes that you’ve seen with it over the years.

Marc Apple: I love podcasting and I encourage all of our clients to do it. It is such a great way to connect with your audience. The audience has the opportunity to hear your voice. There’s one thing you can read someone’s blog article and understand what they’re writing, but you really can’t get that feeling of them saying the words. You miss out on the emphasis. Sure, you can bold text. You can put it in quotes. You can put a graphic around it. But when you listen to a podcast, you can hear the person laugh. You can hear them stop and breathe. You can hear them make points that they want to drive home and ones they want to just sort of glaze across.

Marc Apple: And to me, that is the ultimate, right? Most people, when they listen to podcasts, they’ve got headphones on, so it’s super intimate. Maybe they’re in their car driving and it’s a long commute and they’re stuck in traffic so you’ve got your attention. It’s just such a great way to connect with someone so that they just have a better understanding of not only what you do, but you as a person. I love it. Podcasting is amazing.

Clark Buckner: Oh my gosh, I love everything you just said. And you mentioned commuting, you mentioned how it’s passively consumed. And we’ve seen data show us over the years the top two places people are consuming podcast content is one, actually the highest, is at home doing chores. And then number two has been commuting. Now what’s interesting, even in the midst of what we’ve been experiencing with this global pandemic at the time we’re recording this, even though we’ve seen commuting going down, one signal that’s worth noting is podcasts ad revenue continues to grow. What’s interesting about this, that is focused more on selling ads, which is what we normally are referring to as B2C style podcasting where the strategy is you grow a big audience. You sell ads. That’s how you quote unquote, “Monetize,” or that’s how you capture value. But with what we do with B2B podcasting, it’s a very different strategy.

Clark Buckner: And the audience is likely going to be a lot smaller, but that’s okay because just like you said, if you can focus in on who are you truly making this content for and you make it for those people, even 100 people that consume your content, they’re getting that content in that really intimate way. They have headphones on. They’re doing an activity where they can’t be reading, or maybe can’t be watching a video and you get that intimacy. So we’ve seen that work in a bunch of different ways. Are there any favorite instances that you can think of on how you’ve seen B2B podcasting work for the clients we’ve worked with?

Marc Apple: Definitely. When we’re looking at our success metrics for the clients that we’re doing podcasting with and the podcasts that we do with you all, we’re looking for an engagement of not so much like you mentioned, while listenership is important and we do want as many people to listen as possible, but because of what the podcast is about. So for instance, we have a podcast with a financial advisor. We have a podcast with a hair restoration doctor. So we’re talking sort of subsets, of subsets of people that would actually listen to the information. And that’s where podcasting just takes it again to this other level. Because for instance, in those two podcasts, they’re really intimate settings. You either have the doctor or the financial advisor being interviewed, talking about a subject matter. And there’s a call to action in each of their episodes whether that’s to get a free download from their website, whether that’s to contact them for a consultation, ultimately that’s the success metrics that we’re looking for.

Marc Apple: So those are our success stories is having someone call, someone download, and that we can track to say, “Yes, that came from a podcast.” For instance, with the hair restoration doctor, I was talking to them last week and they told me that they had three people call within the last four weeks that said, “I heard your podcast and that made the difference for me to hire you.”

Clark Buckner: Wow. The more I’ve been learning about this topic, it is super intimate and it is super vulnerable. But if you can listen and you can hear someone, you definitely are building that trust. Man, that is such a good call-out.

Marc Apple: That’s the thing, Clark, is that intimacy. Is that that person that’s searching for the doctor services or needs help with their finances, every opportunity, every new episode, they have a chance to put on their headphones, or do their chores at their house, or get in their car, or go for a walk or be at the gym. And there’s a connection with the doctor, the financial advisor, the two examples that we’re talking about here. And when you talk about things that are intimate, like hair restoration or talking to someone about your bank account, you’ve got to have a high level of trust. It’s one of the best ways to build trust is to get to know you. And that’s what a podcast does. And that’s what every episode is about. From the marketing angle whether it’s someone’s first listen or their 50th listen to the podcast, we want them to have a know, like and trust factor that just says, “You know what? I got to call this person. I need their help. They’re the ones to help me.”

Clark Buckner: It’s a trust building machine.

Marc Apple: Yes, sir.

Clark Buckner: That’s really neat. You know what’s interesting is we just saw a report that there’s more than a million podcasts out there now, which is a good signal. The barrier to entry has been lowered through different apps where people can definitely do it on their own. But what we’ve also seen though is about half of all of those shows in the Apple podcast directory are not active. So we do see a lot of folks who will… because of the popularity of podcasting, like, “Hey, let’s make a podcast.” It’s like the new let’s start a band. And people will start it and then they will pod fade away. And I think podcasting, and this is probably going to be relevant to any other vehicle you use with your marketing, you do need to be consistent. You need to stay with it. If you just create three to four podcast episodes and stop there, it’s a very low likelihood that you’re going to see a return on that. Since it is built to be a trust building tool, part of building trust, I think is showing up consistently and over time.

Marc Apple: Yeah, it is. I always say that 99% of business is showing up. And you kind of think about it, we could just talk about this on a personal level between you and me. We met at a networking event for the American Marketing Association and we just randomly sat down together at the same table for lunch and a presentation. And now we’ve been working together for years. Right?

Clark Buckner: Yeah.

Marc Apple: And that’s part of the know, like and trust. I would say that we met each other face-to-face, then we started talking about business and we’ve been working on a bunch of different things all these years. And we have a high, high value of trust in each other.

Clark Buckner: Sometimes the podcasts that we create, it may not actually be in distribution, which means it might not actually be something that you can find in Apple podcasts. I don’t want to get too in the weeds here, but the point though is a lot of times that we’re creating this content, podcast content, and using the power of audio, it all comes down to what the goals are of the client. One of our clients is The Nashville Software School. We’ve been working with them for several years and technically the interviews that we do with all of their graduating students are not an Apple podcast, but they are embedded on a blog post. And you can listen to these. And there’s a whole bunch of reasons why this has been a great project for them and a great tool for them to use for their students, their recent graduates, to basically get discovered by some of the different employers they work with.

Clark Buckner: It gives them an asset to share once they graduate. It also encourages future students who might be interested in the Nashville Software School. So it’s all about what the goals are. And what’s really cool about the work you do is you’re blending all of this together into one content marketing mix. So you’ve got podcasting, you have blog posts. We take these podcasts, we embed them on a blog post. You get some of that Google juice. You get some of that additional accessibility. You get content that now you can put in your newsletter. So podcasting, when it works best, it’s incorporated in a larger content marketing mix.

Marc Apple: That’s 100% correct, Clark. That’s the thing I love is that we can write a blog article on a topic. So we have text. We can design an infographic about some of the points in that blog article, the text. And the third part is creating a podcast. An audio version talking about the topic that the blog’s written on. So when you think about it from a perspective of a user, some people are more than happy to read a 1,500-2,000 word article on any topic in the world. There’s other people that will never get past the first paragraph of that article. They’ll go right to the infographic and just look at the pictures and pick up the main points.

Marc Apple: But there’s another segment of the population that will say, “I’m not reading it. I’m not looking at the pictures. But I’m more than happy to spend 30 minutes listening to a conversation about this topic” and getting involved in listening to the podcast. That’s the best thing is when you treat sort of your branding, your marketing, your assets as an ecosystem and say, “Well, there’s people that read, there’s people that look and there’s people that listen. If I cater to all three, then I’m making sure my content is reachable to everyone that might want to take a listen, take a look or take a read.”

Clark Buckner: I like that. I like it. It’s been interesting why we just totally believe in a doubling down on the B2B focus. We’ve seen right now, even during a pandemic, some of the data has shown that there has been some decline with podcast consumption. However, when you look really close at the data, actually news, business and science, those categories are up. Some of the decline we’ve seen with your typical B2C podcasts are more entertainment focused. Those are going to be interrupted because people are at home, there’s a lot of other entertainment options when you’re just stuck at home. But what’s been really encouraging to see this get tested in real time. To see podcast consumption and the value of it to stay relevant even during a time like right now, it still has a place and there’s still business to happen, whether you’re in a pandemic like this or not.

Marc Apple: Yeah. And I’m agreeing with you on that. It goes back to something you said, it’s really the value of the podcast and it doesn’t matter what’s happening in the world. So certainly our attention is being pulled in all different directions like it’s never been before. That’s a fact. I was thinking about my own podcast listening, because obviously I’m a huge fan of podcasts. Constantly they’re downloaded automatically onto my phone and I’m listening to them through my headphones, I’m listening to them when I’m going for my walks, I’m listening to them when I’m commuting. And I definitely have slowed down a little bit because of just being pulled in different directions all of a sudden. But for the most part, I still need those podcasts in my life.

Marc Apple: I’m consuming a little bit less, but it’s not something I’m saying, “Hey, I don’t have time for.” I think that goes back to the value of the podcast because the podcast, if they’re done right, they’re sort of real time information. They’re talking about what’s happening now. For instance, some of the marketing podcasts I’m listening to, they’re talking about, well, how do you market in COVID-19? What are we going to do after this when it comes to marketing? I’m on a Facebook Live tonight where they’re looking at a bunch of different ads that focus around sort of coronavirus and how different companies are marketing. What does that mean? It’s sort of a critique session. Those are sort of the things that are happening right now that make podcasting relevant.

Clark Buckner: Well, Mark, what else has been on your mind and heart during these changing times? Has that made you change the way you think about content marketing? Has there been any discoveries you’ve made along the way? And again, I don’t want to date this content, but since this is such a big impact on the world, I think it’s definitely worth flagging as we roll out our new podcast to give a mention, an important mention of what’s happening around us.

Marc Apple: I think one of the biggest discoveries that we found during this pandemic is making sure that we were going back and really looking at clients’ websites and what pages are surfacing to the top. And so that, I mean of a website that’s got hundreds of blog articles over many years. Are there certain articles that all of a sudden are starting to bubble up? An example is we found this on one of our clients that a blog article from 2015. So one that we had literally had completely forgotten about because it was a timely topic in 2015. And the title of the article was ‘If I Lose My Job, How Will I Be Able To Pay My Bills?’ which is a article that you could write today. But because that article was written in 2015 and it was well optimized, the last couple of weeks, it’s been their number one article. The most viewed article on their website.

Marc Apple: So we immediately had to go in, we updated the content for 2020, and now they’ve got a relevant article on their site with other useful information that was written in 2015. So it is as a marketing agency and even for a small business owner, taking a look and seeing what opportunities are there, because what we’re finding is people’s habits are changing. We’re changing. The entire world is changing through this. And I think this lesson of sort of the what’s bubbling up in this case is something that we’ll be able to take with us going past what’s ever happening in the world today.

Clark Buckner: I like that concept of reusing, recycling, finding new ways to use content you already have. And it’s also easier, you were describing earlier, some people might want to read, they might want to watch something, maybe they want to listen to something. But it’s probably also similar to think about your thought leadership or your experts, your subject matter experts. They might not want to write a full page blog post. But, hey, they’ll talk. And then you can create that into a blog post for them. So not only is podcasting, can it be easier for the consumer, it can also be easier for the content producer.

Marc Apple: Yeah. I love that. I can tell you, we have some clients that, that is one of the ways that we sort of get the information out of their head and onto us to write their blog posts for them, is we literally say, “Let’s sit down and record you talking.” And it’s just like a podcast setting. Because it’s so easy for people to speak when they’re knowledgeable about a topic, they can just ramble on. And that’s the kind of information that we’re looking for and we’re able to now get them warmed up to say, “You know what, you’d make a great podcast.”

Clark Buckner: Hey, yeah.

Marc Apple: You talking about this subject. And we’ve done that with a couple of our clients where they’ve now become… They’re a podcast, right? They’ve got a podcast and they love now speaking because they understand the value of podcasting and making that connection and then using it, like you said, on all these other assets: recycling it, repurposing it and really finding the ROI in the podcast is sort of that linchpin. That’s where it starts from in those cases.

Clark Buckner: Absolutely. Well, Mark, I have so enjoyed this. I think this is a great way to kick off our new podcast here at Relationary. We’ve been working on this for a little bit. So happy that we could have you on our kickoff episode to talk about podcasting and how it’s used in content marketing because ultimately we want to create assets that are getting used and getting consumed and helping our clients goals get pushed forward. So, hey, thank you again. What’s a good way for someone to learn more about you and the team over at Forward Push?

Marc Apple: You’re welcome, Clark. The best place to go to is our website, forwardpush.com. We’ve got plenty of resources on there. A lot of guides, information, and of course there’s audio content for people to listen to.

Clark Buckner: Awesome. Thanks so much. Be safe out there and we’ll be talking soon.

Marc Apple: Thanks, Clark. Have a good day.

Clark Buckner: Hey, thanks so much 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. And if you enjoy this content, please follow, rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts. We’ll see you next time.

Brandcasting is a production of Relationary Marketing. This episode was produced by Darcy Mack and executive producers, Clark Buckner, me, and Chuck Bryant with editing support from Dylan Carrow and music by Jess Grommet. Additional production support is provided by Anthony Luciani, AJ Meyers, Riley Wallace and Jasmine Meriweather.