Can we all agree that podcasts are marketing gold for B2B brands? No, seriously. The B2B brands who are using podcasts as a way to humanize their brand, drive connection with their internal and external audience, and build intimate relationships are crushing it.
Podcasting is a medium that's catching on quickly among marketers and for good reason. No other marketing vehicle gives you the opportunity to get inside your audience's earbuds at any time during the day. At the gym, doing laundry, mowing the grass, commuting. These are all moments that your audience can choose to spend time with you when you have a podcast.
But don't take our word for it. There are some pretty amazing marketing leaders who are all in on podcasting. So much so, they've taken podcasting as a tool with them throughout their career. Let's call it, the podcast effect.
The podcast effect is that moment of realization. The moment when a marketer realizes the opportunity, the value, the power that podcasting offers a brand. So, instead of thinking of podcasting as just another channel or medium we HAVE to be on. They take podcasting under their wing and they strategically integrate it into their marketing plans. Not just at the first place they discover podcasting. Oh no. It's something they take with them from brand to brand as they grow their career.
We recently had the opportunity to create an exclusive narrative podcast for HubSpot's INBOUND conference. When we were planning out our episode, we noticed something pretty amazing. We had conversations with some pretty amazing marketing leaders who have done amazing things with podcasting. And they all had a pretty amazing thread connecting them, a throughline if you will. They all had a hand in bringing to life one of the B2B industry's earliest podcasts: HubSpot's The Growth Show.
But what was more amazing is how each of these marketing leaders went on to use podcasting as a way to humanize and grow the respective brands they went on to lead.
The Growth Show was just the beginning. Each of these marketing greats continued on to make podcasting a bigger part of the conversation and it continues to be a strategic aspect of their careers that ties them all together.
Mike Volpe was part of the founding team at HubSpot. He spent nearly 9 years there helping grow it into the amazing brand we know and love today. During his time there, he went on to launch HubSpot TV and The Growth Show.
But he didn't leave podcasting behind when he left HubSpot. Instead, he helped launch Malicious Life while CMO at Cybereason and went on to launch several podcasts in his current role as CEO at Lola.com.
Jeanne Hopkins served as VP of Marketing at HubSpot during the height of HubSpot TV. She saw how valuable live streaming and audio could be for a brand. It could humanize a giant brand and give the brilliant minds behind a brand the chance to showcase their expertise.
After leaving HubSpot, she carried this with her and worked on several podcasting initiatives within the brands she helped to grow. During her time at Progress Software, she helped launch the show P.I.C.N.I.C. She also found herself working with Mike Volpe again at Lola.com as the CMO. She had the opportunity to work on several of the Lola.com podcasts, including hosting Table Fries.
As one of the earliest HubSpot marketing hires, Ellie Mirman saw how HubSpot TV and The Growth Show impacted both the brand externally and internally at HubSpot. As early pioneers of live streaming video and podcasts for marketing, they saw how valuable it was to be unique in the market and to focus on building connections with your audiences.
Ellie has continued to focus on relationships and using content as a way to win over your audience in her time since HubSpot. She's focused on these initiatives in her time leading the marketing charge at Toast and Crayon. She's also an important part of the Casted story, as she is one of the amazing marketing leaders currently serving on our board.
As a foundational member of the podcasting scene in Boston even before his time at HubSpot, it shouldn't be that shocking that Dave Gerhardt has continued to elevate podcasting as a pillar of the marketing strategies he's worked on.
Since launching The Growth Show, Dave went on to help build Drift into the powerhouse and charismatic brand it is today. Let's not mention that he launched the incredibly successful Seeking Wisdom podcast as a way to capture his CEO's thoughts and turn them into compelling content. Drift has since gone on to launch 7 different podcasts, and Dave continues to elevate podcasting with The Ecommerce Marketing Show at Privy and his own private podcast and marketing group, DG's Marketing Group.
As the Senior Marketing Manager of Podcasts at HubSpot from 2015 to early 2020, Sam Balter was a part of the team that helped expand HubSpot's podcast venture into a network of shows. For their team, it was important to make sure every show was solving a problem and had a specific audience it was trying to reach.
Because we're focusing on HubSpot, it only made sense to end with the face who is leading the marketing charge at HubSpot today. Meghan Keaney Anderson has been helping HubSpot grow into the brand it is today for over 9 years. During her time with HubSpot, she not only helped launch The Growth Show but is now the host of this amazing, long-running show.
She's been an integral part of driving HubSpot to think about podcasting as a way to reach new audiences and a tool to chase down theories and hypothesis their team creates.
So I know what you're thinking. You just spent time checking out the graphic and reading about each of these marketing superstars and how they've made podcasting a priority. Should you be doing the same?
At Casted, we believe podcasting is a powerful tool and it should be an anchor to your marketing strategy. But not just because we think everyone should have a podcast. When thinking about podcasting, just like any other part of a marketing strategy, before you get started you need to consider why you're doing it and who's it for. If you don't have strategic goals around your podcast, you're not setting yourself up for success.
For many B2B marketers, their brand could benefit from a podcast for two reasons.
Too often, we see content marketers being tasked with being the thought leaders of their company. What do we mean? Well... often, the thought leadership content is derived from the content marketing department. And more often than not, it's the content marketer's job to research, write, interview, etc. to create that content. But chances are, you have an expert internally or externally who could be a fabulous resource.
Podcasts are a great way to extract information from the people your audience wants to hear from most. In fact, Dave Gerhardt actually started the Seeking Wisdom podcast because he needed a way to easily extract the amazing knowledge and expertise his CEO, David Cancel, had. And a podcast was the most natural way to do it. They turned that podcast into an incredibly successful show for Drift, and Dave still uses podcasting today to capture expert voices and amplify them into his marketing strategies.
Traditionally, when you think of B2B brands, you probably think of giant corporations that feel stiff and cold in their communication style. But podcasts literally put a voice to a brand. Not just from your host, but from the internal thought leaders, industry experts, partners, and customers that are often interviewed for B2B podcasts.
Podcasts offer a way to humanize the brand and focus on building connections, not just conversions.
Need more reasons that podcasting is a great fit for B2B brands? Check out these articles on how you can better utilize podcasting as a part of your broader marketing strategy:
If you haven't had a chance to listen to these amazing marketing leaders talk about their time at HubSpot, their work on HubSpot's podcasting network, and the amazing work they've gone on to do, check out our exclusive The Casted Podcast episode "What Happened When HubSpot Hit Record."