Hey there, marketer. (Yes, you.) We see you.
You’re the one behind the scenes, flawlessly executing, coordinating meetings, and understanding how things work. You may not be the one up on stage, but none of the magic could happen without you.
We know what you’re up against. What you need isn’t another vague blog or lukewarm slide deck, but something tactical. Something authentic. Something that’s going to perform (and bonus, make you look like a rockstar).
That’s where podcasts come in. Authentic conversations that drive action and boost brands. Lucky for you, one of our most recent guests, Muhammad Yasin, Executive Vice President of Marketing at PERQ, knows all about these things. (And he’s partial to middle managers.) In fact, this is the backbone behind the two incredible podcasts he hosts.
Let’s take a look at how Muhammad’s two shows are produced, how he invites the most authentic conversations, and how those stories showcase the stories of marketers and practitioners driving the marketing machine.
As the co-founder of Agile Marketing Indy, a community of process-minded marketers, Muhammad is also the co-host of its podcast, the Agile Marketing Podcast. Between that and PERQ’s podcast, The Bridge, he influences quite a bit of content. And while the execution may look different for each, both are driven by the almighty, real life conversation.
“It’s a lot of work to create a piece of content, and one of the reasons that I love podcasting in particular is it allows for some of these organic conversations to happen,” he says. “You end up with a much more authentic piece of content that you can use on the back end to write blogs...for weeks or months sometimes.”
He’s not wrong. This approach is genius, and it works.
Muhammad’s team uses podcasts to fuel a plethora of content, including:
When you start with really authentic content, you can repurpose it into other formats down the road — instead of the other way around, which Muhammad believes is much harder.
Agile Marketing Indy got its start as an in-person event featuring speakers from around the Indianapolis area. But the pool of influencers quickly dried up, leaving the team searching for more. So for season one of the Agile Marketing Podcast, Muhammad and his co-founder had one goal in mind: bring in new voices from the biggest possible logos in the industry.
How did they pull it off? By simply starting yet another conversation.
By searching hashtags like #agilemarketing on LinkedIn, Muhammad and his co-founder could see who was passionate on the topic, watch for their content, and make an introduction to further the conversation. Under this method, the Agile Marketing Podcast secured names like American Express, Trello, Gong, Edelman, Discover Our Work, Indianapolis Colts, Red Hat, and more (not too shabby, eh?).
Now in its second season, the podcast has a slightly different approach. The theme? Whatever the guest is passionate about, whether it’s sales enablement, leading an SDR team, or account-based marketing.
“We don’t want to force a conversation,” says Muhammad. “The authenticity is important, and it’s going to feel weird if the person’s not talking about something they’re passionate about. I’d say 50% of the time, we end up pivoting from what our original conversation was going to be.”
Real passion + honest (and highly repurposable) conversation = genius.
PERQ’s podcast was more of an experiment at first, simply testing the waters to see if the show worked and anyone would listen. The main goal was to just get it launched, start inviting guests, and see what happens — and it worked.
Sometimes experimenting is the only way to go. It takes guts, sure, but it can pay off big-time!
Muhammad’s team began inviting customers to the conversation — not as a stuffy case study to promote PERQ, but just to swap ideas. (And it turns out, customers feel really special when you ask them to be on a podcast!)
The company also reached out to trade publication reporters as a way to converse with the people who are usually the ones asking questions. The series was so successful, it drove The Bridge to be part of the top 15 marketing podcasts on iTunes for three weeks.
But The Bridge isn’t just successful because it can top the charts. The podcast put PERQ at the top level of its marketing strategy, using authentic interviews they can “remix” (loving that word, Muhammad uses!) into other pieces.
“This does not have to be difficult,” says Muhammad. “This can be very easy if you make it easy and if you listen for the themes and copy inside of that interview content because it’s literally writing itself for you.”
Podcasts can truly be a gold mine for your marketing. You just have to listen with repurposing (or remixing) in mind and unearth those nuggets.
Any middle manager will tell you that developing marketing content is hard work. But does it have to be a complete burden? Absolutely not. Muhammad makes it happen by seeking out the people behind the scenes who are driving the industry forward and striking up a conversation.
“I’ve always been a big proponent of making large pieces of content that can be broken into much smaller consumable, snackable, bite-sized pieces that can be delivered to people where they’re at,” he says.
By starting with the most real, authentic content (i.e. conversations with people who know it best), you’ll set yourself up for more evergreen content than you can even imagine for use down the road.
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At Casted, we’re more than obsessed with conversations, and we’ve mastered the art of using them to fuel better marketing through strategic podcast management, activation, and measurement. We’ve combined the ability to host, transcribe, schedule, create clips, share on social, embed, and so much more into a single platform for maximizing your show’s (and brand’s) ROI. Let us show you around with a quick demo or conversation.