Brands are always tasked with setting themselves apart from the competition, and in some industries, there’s a huge amount of noise to contend with. You have to distinguish your value prop, your voice, and your brand’s character from everybody else. But if you’re all selling marketing software or ecommerce solutions, how exactly do you do that?
Today’s guest on The Casted Podcast, Vern Tremble, answered that question by launching a podcast. As the Senior Director of Marketing at Wunderkind — a performance marketing channel where brands can identify, engage and convert their customers at scale — Vern was challenged to hit the podcast ground… well, podcasting the moment he came into the company.
He knew what the value prop was, he could feel his way through discovering the right voice, but when it came to establishing Wunderkind’s character, Vern did something incredibly smart. He honed in on the human-to-human connection in B2B marketing. Rather than think of his potential audience as customers or listeners (which they are), Vern thought about them as humans, who, like him and his coworkers at Wunderkind, are interested in a wide array of topics from trusted authorities. Maybe they’d be interested in contracting services at some point, but they would definitely be interested in relevant information, and if he could entertain them along the way, those humans would come to trust the brand and consistently engage with Vern’s show.
Eventually, the way he set his brand apart from the rest of the competition was by spotlighting something humans are fascinated with: Individuality. Today he’s going to share his experience and insights on how he strategized and launched Individuality Unleashed, a podcast that focuses on what makes brands unique and how they drive success, proving that when you speak to your audience as the human beings they are, they not only pay attention to your brand, but your brand’s character remains foremost in their minds for years to come.
Digging into Key Takeaways
For each episode, we like to highlight some key takeaways. Think of it as a podcast outline or live show notes. Here are just a few of the takeaways that really stood out to us in this episode.
What It Takes to Start and Grow a Successful Podcast from the Inception 🌱
One way a podcast gets greenlit by leadership is when your brand identifies a gap in topic coverage or thought leadership that your audience craves. But before you hit record and go, you’ve got to save yourself a false start. You may very well need an agency to help produce the show, but you absolutely cannot outsource your strategy: What do you want your podcast to do for your brand’s overall marketing strategy?
This is the big lesson Vern learned as he launched Individuality Unleashed, even having to reshoot the first episode. As he shares in the episode, you’ve got to know what you want to say, who’s the authority on topics, and above all, what your audience will find valuable and come back to your show for. That’s when you hit record and go for it.
The Importance of Content Being Both Entertaining and Informative 💡
Sometimes when you’re just starting your show, a content marketer can get stopped in his tracks with figuring out what the meat of the podcast is going to be. What are you going to talk about? So you identify the topics that your audience is interested in, and then you hit another paralyzing concern. Sure, you know what you’re going to cover, but how can you ensure it’s engaging?
Like other successful B2B podcasters in the martech industry, Vern understood his initial brand awareness mission, but to make Individuality Unleashed become a powerful part of Wunderkind’s marketing strategy, Vern had to set his course according to two stars: The show has to be both entertaining and informative. This realization allows him to meet all the business goals, but as he discusses in the episode, the creative discovery is also just plain fun.
Creating a Podcast Isn’t Just for Fun — What’s Your Business Use Case? 🤑
While fun is what you want your audience to have while listening to or viewing your show, fun is not why a brand’s leadership buys into launching a podcast. Marketers are conditioned to tie every piece of content they create to a business goal, a strategy, a value.
For Vern, he asked a wise question: What is the podcast’s CTA? Is it brand awareness? Website traffic? Demo requests? But he also realized the way in which the podcast delivered the CTA had to speak to the human on the other end of the connection.
Interested in More from Wunderkind?
For more on how Wunderkind helps brands engage and convert customers, be sure to visit Wunderkind. And if you’d like to learn more about what sets brands apart and see how Vern continues to build his podcast strategy, check out Individuality Unleashed.
Want to skim through Vern’s episode instead of listening? Read the transcript here.
About Season 8 of The Casted Podcast
Welcome to Season 8 of The Casted Podcast, where we focus exclusively on our customers, brands who know the value of delivering high-quality podcast, video, and written content that their audiences truly want. Hear from the most forward-thinking brands discovering how to harness the power of conversation and amplify their content marketing in a range of formats and channels — and how they build integrated marketing strategies around podcasting. They're practicing what we preach, and we want you to hear all about what they're doing, why they're doing it, and most of all, how you can do it too.
