Kristin Charron: On this episode of the Sonic Truth, Annalise Nielsen from Pacific Content joins Kristin Charron to discuss the creation and value of branded podcasts, the testing and optimization tools that brands are using to get it right, the importance of having an ironclad marketing strategy that includes audio and more. Thank you for joining us and welcome back to The Sonic Truth. Welcome back to The Sonic Truth. Thanks for tuning in. I'm here today with Annalise Nielsen, head of strategy and development at Pacific Content. Welcome, Annalise.






Annalise Nielsen: Hi, thanks for having me.






Kristin: Oh my gosh, thank you so much for coming on. It's a pleasure to connect. So head of strategy and development at Pacific Content. Just so I have this right, you guys are an agency that really works with brands on all things audio, right? Development, execution, podcasts, but also anything else they could be doing with audio. Is that accurate?






Annalise: Yeah, exactly. Our bread and butter is really making original podcasts with brands, so that's the majority of the work that we do and that's what we're really known for, but we really focus on that strategy piece. So we're also working with brands to develop and then execute any strategy related to podcasts or audio that is going to help them to solve the business problems that they have. So that means if the strategy involves creating and executing a really smart podcast ad campaign, we also work with our clients to do things like that. But yeah, what we're really known for is original brands or original podcasts with brands.






Kristin: Do you find that there's vast differences in strategy based on where they're based? Or is it specific to the brand? Are there any trends based on location?






Annalise: That's a great question. I would say probably location wise, the trend I would say is most apparent is that the US has been faster to adopt podcasts and to really create more sophisticated podcast campaigns and strategies. But that I think goes across the board for a lot of different industries. The US has a lot of capital and they tend to jump onto things a little bit faster than elsewhere. But in terms of other trends that we've seen, I think podcasts were a really big exciting thing for a lot of tech brands and a lot of financial institutions for a long time. I think we're seeing that diversify a little bit more, and I hope that we see more diversification in that in the next coming years, especially when it comes to creating an original podcast. This has been a huge strategy for B2B marketers for the last few years, and that's great, and that makes a lot of sense. Making a podcast is a really smart strategy for a B2B marketer, especially when you have very niche content that you're looking to put in front of a pretty small targeted audience. It's a really smart strategy to have a podcast as a B2B marketer. Also, we know podcast listeners tend to be highly educated and they often work within certain categories, but I think as podcasts become more mainstream and you have so many people who are now listening to podcasts, it also makes sense for more B2C brands to start considering having an original podcast as well. So I think we'll see more of that in the coming years.






Kristin: Absolutely. And for the B2B brands that are really leaning into branded podcasts, do you find that they're doing them themselves and in-house? Are they bringing in outside, whether it's production companies or people like yourselves to help?






Annalise: I think we see both. There's definitely lots of B2B brands that are trying it themselves and doing it on their own. I think to be totally honest, I think a lot of B2B companies will start a podcast without realizing everything that goes into a podcast and how much more there is to it beyond just pushing record and uploading an audio file. So I think a lot of times they'll embark on it and then realize that it's maybe a bigger project than they had realized and then bring in an outside agency to help them with it from there. Yeah, I think we do work with some B2B marketers who recognize that a B2B audience can be very targeted, but that target audience are still listeners at the end of the day, they're still people, and so they're really keen to put the humanity back into B2B marketing, which I really appreciate.






I think that's something that's been a little bit lacking. Sometimes we get so caught up in the minutiae of the product that we're selling that we forget that the person at the other end is still a person and they still come to podcasts because they want to be educated, yes, and informed, but they also want to be entertained. And if you're asking them for 20, 30, 40 minutes of their time, that's a pretty big ask, even if it is their job to listen. So we have some clients that have really put a lot of thought into the approach that they take to their B2B podcast and still approach it through a storytelling lens. A great example of this is we work with Atlassian on a podcast called Work Check, and that podcast is very firmly a B2B podcast. It's for a B2B audience, and it's still a very lively, thoughtfully produced podcast covering issues in the workplace related to people's jobs, but it's also a show that you could put on while you're walking your dog or while you're cooking and still be entertained and it doesn't feel like work. So I really appreciate that about Atlassian's approach to their B2B podcast, and I hope that we see more of that in the future.






Kristin: I love that. That is such a good tip. I mean, it really is all about storytelling in an entertaining way. Even if the subject matter is B2B or something that is typically a little more dry, I just feel like people have such limited free time these days that when they do engage with a medium, be it video or podcast, whatever it is, it has to really hold their attention and be worth it, especially in the podcast space where there's so much competition.






Annalise: I think that when it comes to B2B podcasts, a lot of times the target for these B2B podcasts are people who are working in a corporate setting in an office, and those jobs don't really lend themselves to listening to podcasts while you're working. If you're making a podcast, podcasts have a lot of, there's a lot of pluses to this. They're a great medium for disseminating information, especially complicated information. Somebody is much more likely to spend 20, 30 minutes listening to a podcast compared to reading a blog post, for example. So if you want to spend a lot of time with your target audience, a podcast is a great option, but I think you also have to think about when and how they're going to be consuming that podcast because if it's related to the job that they do, they probably aren't going to be listening while they're at work because they're probably doing things like reading or writing or, which it's hard to listen to a podcast while you're writing. It's not the type of work that lends itself to listening to podcasts. So likely these are people who are going to be listening to their podcast in their spare time outside of their nine to five time. And if that's the case, you really want it to be engaging and entertaining so that it doesn't feel like you're extending their workday.






Kristin: Exactly it. Exactly. Alright, I want to get into your website here for a minute. So your homepage says we help brave brands amplify their values and deeply connect with audiences through podcasts. Why do you use the word brave?






Annalise: This is such a good question. I brought it up with other people on the team and was like, maybe we need to change this line on our website.






Kristin: It's interesting, right? It's intriguing, but it also could be a little alienated. What makes a brand brave and why is that associated with podcasts? I don't know. It definitely caught my attention. So curious.






Annalise: Totally. Well, I think that your question makes me think that the interpretation that you were taking away from this is that brave is the qualifier for the what, right? We're saying that you have to be brave in order to invest in podcasts in the first place. How we really meant it is the how. So we meant that we work with brands that want to take a creative and a brave approach to how they invest in their podcast marketing campaign. So it's really a throwback to this sort of Pacific content term that we use pretty regularly. We call it creative bravery, and by that we mean basically having the courage to make podcasts that are actually good, that people are actually going to want to listen to, that are engaging and that are not just a big long infomercial for your brand. So having the bravery to try something different, to be really creative, to make something that's going to stand out in a busy marketplace of podcasts, to produce something that is really going to delight your audiences and surprise your audiences and be memorable for those audiences versus playing it safe and making something that is just a standard, reading the benefits of your product or making a really tightly focused podcast about your brand.






Kristin: Brands should have podcasts in their toolkit and really should we approaching it as well with an open mind. Open mind in terms of creative, being open-minded to what will cut through the noise. I think that is so great, and it probably answers a little bit of my second question here, which is also in your website you break down the processes and the phases that go into creating these kinds of elements. So in the case of podcasts, what's most important for a brand to consider in the content development phase? How can they be sure that this is going to resonate well? Is there data they can rely on? What does the research look like? What is that in terms of your process?






Annalise: Another great question. I think that the most important question that a brand needs to ask themselves before they embark on their podcast strategy is why are we making a podcast or why are we approaching podcasts? Why are we embarking a podcast and what do we need this campaign to do for us? So if you're thinking about launching an original podcast, the first question we'll ask is, what does success look like for this podcast? Why are you making this podcast right now and what do you need this podcast to do for you? Sometimes that's we are rebranding and we want to go to market with a new set of values for a brand. Maybe they're investing in more eco research or there's a new green initiative that they're taking as a brand and they want to promote that. And so a podcast is a great opportunity to create a relationship with their audience and let their audience know that, hey, these are our values. This is what we're doing right now and we really care about this and we're investing in this as a value. That makes so much sense. That's awesome. We're going to go forward producing a podcast that's going to achieve that for them.






Sometimes we talk to people and they say, I want a million people to hear this podcast because I want to tell them about a new product that I'm launching and I want them all to buy my product right now, and I want to track that. And if that's the case, then maybe we'll have a conversation about is a podcast the right tool to achieve that? Because the reality is that if that's your goal, you might be better off running a podcast ad campaign where we're leveraging an existing audience and we can guarantee a million impressions with that campaign and we can track conversions and that might be a better tool for a project that's a little bit more lower in the funnel. There's a lot of things that you can achieve with an original podcast, and original podcasts are most successful when it's a high top of funnel project. But if you're running a really short campaign and you're looking to reach a whole lot of people really fast and track conversions, a better option might be running an ad campaign. And that's also something that we can help you with and we can work towards.






So I think it's really important to know why you're making the podcast. We've also had conversations with clients who've come in thinking that they were going to make a podcast that was for a broad audience, just a general audience, putting it out in the world, targeting everybody. And then as we got to talking, we realized like, hey, actually this is a podcast that your goal right now is really talking to your shareholders, so maybe we need to make this into a private podcast that you only share with your shareholders and you're giving them something that's personal, private information about the company and how it's doing. And you can track that and keep it more private and you can get into stuff that's more detailed for the shareholders. And so we'll take that approach instead. I think it's just really important in those early stages to really hammer out what is the goal of this project and what do you need to achieve while we're doing it.






Kristin: And in the vein of creating and deepening relationships with audiences, can you talk me through the role that data plays in terms of measuring impact? So how much value are creative testing and attribution measurement tools providing brands in terms of helping them measure and optimize their content?






Annalise: Yeah, I think that attribution measurement has become much more of a thing in the original podcast world than it ever was in the last year or so. So I don't know if you're finding this, Kristin. I think that probably marketers are facing a lot more scrutiny about every dollar that they spend than the last year.






Kristin: Absolutely.






Annalise: Yeah. And so with that comes a lot more scrutiny around attribution and increased requests for attribution measurement, which to be honest, is tricky when it comes to making an original podcast. It's not that we can't do it, we certainly have the technology to be able to do it, it's just that you're not really measuring the right thing when you're using pixel measurement or attribution measurement on an original podcast. It's a useful thing to have. It's useful data to have. But the truth is, making an original podcast is top of funnel marketing and top of funnel marketing, you can measure attribution, but we would really encourage looking at things like maybe running a brand lift study could be a great way to understand how the podcast is really moving the needle for your brand affinity or how people are interpreting or engaging with your brand before and after listening to the podcast or how it impacts how memorable your brand is for this target audience.






We also run surveys pretty literally to capture some of that same sort of data. So understanding how your listeners are receiving the podcast, how it's changed the way that they interact with your brand, how it's changed the way they think about your brand. We can also measure consideration for future purchases, which is great for some of our clients we work with. For example, like insurance companies, if you're selling insurance, measuring direct conversions may not give you a super accurate read of how successful your podcast is because people are not always in the market for insurance. But measuring their consideration of your brand after listening to the podcast could give you some really useful data about how successful that podcast is because ideally, you make an amazing original podcast and then the next time somebody is going to buy insurance, you're top of mind for them because you built that relationship for them. That could be six months from now. It's not the kind of thing you can track with a pixel, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't successful.






Kristin: Absolutely. And so many brands too, sorry to interrupt. So many brands have custom KPIs and things that, again, just a pixel alone can't provide information on that they're interested in understanding and being able to do a custom brand lift study that hits on all of those questions and really gets to the impact from a top of funnel perspective is super valuable. And it also can help to inform all sorts of other decisions, content decisions, placement decisions, distribution decisions. There's so much there that goes beyond just simple conversion data.






Annalise: Totally. I also, I love that you asked about testing and audience development and how we approach that. Typically we have an audience development department that handles all of our measurements. So they'll do regular metrics reports to look across the board at all of our different metrics that we track and then puts them all together and they tell a little story based on those metrics that they've collected. And we will do a mid-season report typically where we'll break down how's the podcast doing? How is the audience receiving the podcast? What can we learn from this data that we have? And often we'll pivot based on that mid-season report. So we look a lot at, for example, engagement is a really important metric for us. Downloads of course, are important, and reach is of course important, but the most important metric that we spend the most time with is engagement.






So looking at how long people spend with your podcast and are they completing the podcast? Are they listening to the whole thing? Are they dropping off at any points? And what can that tell us about how we should approach the creative for the rest of the season? So we will often pivot based on that mid-season report. Maybe we'll cut down the intro of our podcast or maybe we will take a different approach to the little ending that we have, the segment that we do at the end. So yeah, we do do a lot of data-driven testing and pivoting based on that. And mid-season for all of our shows that we produce, we'll do a metrics report and a check-in where the audience development specialist will tell a little story based on all of the data that they've collected. And we'll use that to really understand how the podcast is performing and how the audience is receiving that podcast.






So a metric that we put a lot of weight to is engagement, and we look a lot at how long people spend with the podcast. So downloads are important, reach is definitely important, but engagement is the metric that we really spend a lot of time with. And we'll look at are people dropping off at certain points? Are people skipping past the intro? Are people only listening halfway through? Which episodes are resonating the most with people? Which episodes are people coming back to and listening to over and over again? And what can we learn from that and apply to how we approach the rest of the season? So it's kind of a different take on that creative testing question, but definitely collecting that data and making sure that we are understanding it and we're interpreting it correctly so that we can pivot and shift and how we produce the podcast is certainly important.






Kristin: I couldn't agree more. I definitely understand the value of that balance, and I think it's important to really be looking at things as holistically as possible. But it's interesting going back to your comment on the engagement piece. I love that you are providing that value to your clients and that you have a dedicated team to looking at that and really just overall being dedicated to helping them optimize. We see a lot of clients taking advantage of our second by second engagement data, which is exactly that. So basically you can upload a podcast into our platform and the second by second engagement data tells you, write down to the word within a script, what's resonating with the listeners, what's maybe doing really well? What's not doing so well? What can you optimize really on a second by second basis? So I feel like as granular as a brand wants to get with those insights and with that optimization, it's all available and it's all really powerful in terms of making sure that the investment is sound, no pun intended, and that it's really being optimized to perform and every dollar is being optimized for the highest return.






Annalise: Yeah. And I love the idea of taking that data and combining it with other data that you're collecting and maybe with surveys that you're doing or with some of the more subjective forms of measurement, and then really turning that into a story. How can we take that second by second data about where people are dropping off or where people are skipping or turning the show off, and how can we understand that as a story? Was this a one-off with this one episode? Because if that's the case, then we don't want to completely change our show based on a one-off. Maybe it was the time when the podcast came out, maybe the episode came out on Christmas and people were busy and didn't listen to it as much. And so we don't necessarily want to completely revamp things because of that, but also that data is super valuable, and if we start to see a pattern, then we know we have something to change about our show. So yeah, I think it's a great data set. It's a great tool to have when you're looking at ways to improve.






Kristin: Completely agree. And I have one more question for you before we get to our fun rapid fire section. So you're in an elevator with the CMO of a really big brand and you're going from the very top floor to the lobby. So you've got about a minute to convince the CMO why they should be leveraging audio within their media mix. What would you say to that person?






Annalise: I would say that podcasts are where audiences are. Podcast audiences continue to grow year over year and podcasts are mainstream now. You've got over half of the American audience are listening to podcasts. And not only that, but podcast listeners are a really desirable demographic. You've got a demographic of people who are highly educated, who are high income earners, they have money to spend, they also tend to be more diverse and also younger. So you can reach that sort of coveted millennial, specifically millennial women, you can reach them who are the ones who are spending all of the money in their households and making the purchasing decisions. Podcasts makes sense as a place to engage with audiences and also podcasts give you an opportunity to engage with audiences at a level that you don't really get with any other marketing tool. You can spend so much more time with a listener, with your target audience if you make an original podcast compared to an Instagram ad or a billboard, for example. Imagine getting to spend 20 to 30 minutes with your target audience every single week.






Kristin: Yeah, you're a part of the soundtrack of their day. What other channel can allow you to do that?






Annalise: Exactly, 100%.






Kristin: And not even in an invasive way either. This is, they're welcoming you into their ears, into that moment. They're looking for that companionship. So I couldn't agree more. It's incredibly powerful. Okay. Moving into the rapid fire questions. We haven't talked a lot about audio logos during this segment, but for you, what is the last one that you recall having stuck in your head?






Annalise: This is such a good question, and I love talking about audio logos, and I think the science behind it is so interesting too.






Kristin: Same.






Annalise: Yeah. So the one that I thought I would bring to you is the audio logo for Sleep Country Canada. I don't know if you've ever heard the Sleep Country Canada.






Kristin: I'm going to have to Google it.






Annalise: Yeah, I can try to sing it for you, but it's going to be terrible.






Kristin: Oh my God, please do. If you're willing to do it.






Annalise: I don't think that they use it very much anymore. So I know you said the most recent one or the last one that I can recall, but I mean, this is one that I still get in my head sometimes, and I don't even think I've heard it for years, but they used to run radio ads all the time and they would go Sleep Country Canada, why buy a mattress anywhere else? And I mean, it's a little longer than a standard logo, but that Sleep Country Canada, that used to get stuck in my head all the time.






Kristin: And you said you haven't heard it in years and you can still sing it probably better than the original voiceover. So well done. Sleep Canada. That is a very effective logo.






Annalise: It's very effective.






Kristin: Alright. And if you had to listen to one song on repeat for the rest of your life, which is most people's worst nightmare, which would you choose?






Annalise: This is an easy question for me because I have one song that I listened to on repeat and have listened to on repeat for like 15 years, and it's...






Kristin: Oh my gosh.






Annalise: I know. It's Fast Car by Tracy Chapman.






Kristin: Oh.






Annalise: Which I started listening to on Repeat when I was pretty young and then listened to so much that back when I had iTunes, I had listened to it over 10,000 times because I just would put it on repeat and listen to it all day. And as I fell asleep every single night, and I love it and I'm still not sick of it and would listen to it on repeat forever.






Kristin: That's amazing. That's definitely one of those classic songs. The second you said it started playing in my head, I feel like everybody just knows that song.






Annalise: Totally. Yeah, it's a great song.






Kristin: That's amazing. Well, now I need to go look up that logo and listen to that song. But thank you so, so much, Annalise. It has been such a pleasure. I loved hearing all about what you guys do and your thoughts on how brands are doing really well in terms of embracing audio and optimizing it, and just really great insights coming out of all the great work that you guys do. So thank you again for joining me today.






Annalise: Thank you. Your questions were phenomenal. So thank you for the opportunity to chat today.






Kristin: Thank you so much. This episode was brought to you by Marketing Against The Grain, a HubSpot podcast network production. If you want to break down of the latest marketing trends, growth tactics, and most innovative happenings in the world of marketing, you need to check out this podcast. Simply search for Marketing Against The Grain in your favorite podcast app to tune in.






[END]