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hello and welcome to WP product talk the place where every week we interview an experienced WordPress product owner on
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strategies tips experiences failures and triumphs of running successful and
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thriving WordPress product businesses I am Zach cat founder of trusted login and gravity kit
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and I'm Katie Keith CEO and co-founder at B two plugins and today's topic is podcasting
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as a marketing tool for WordPress product businesses and this is a great topic
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because it is a real marketing tool that you can use and yet a big proportion of
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product owners aren't doing anything with it yet so let's talk about it yeah and to talk with us uh about this today
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is our special guest Matt Maderos uh who is very well known in the WordPress Community as a expert podcaster so Matt
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among other things but uh Matt please introduce yourself in your introduction
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the only thing I resonate with is failures out of out of that list of Mak
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here uh baderas uh podcasting about WordPress for quite some time uh but you can find me at gravity forms hosting the
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breakdown podcast and often showing up on the YouTube channel in the form of a live stream uh and then the wp minute at
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the wp minute.com amazing well thank you so much for coming on and we'd also like to give you
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a special thank you for being one of the early supporters of WP product talk so
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when it was first founded by Cromwell and Kim colan um you helped to
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distribute it and we're by far the most important matth in the history of this podcast I think we can all agree so if
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anybody's watching uh then feel free to leave your comments and we'd love to answer your questions about podcasting
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for WordPress product owners when Cromwell asked me to about
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podcasting he's like what how do I do this thing I'm like Cromwell listen just let me distribute it for you it's G to
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be way he's like I want to use Twitter spaces Cromwell that's not how you do it so I helped him trying to just like get
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this thing off the audio ground so it was a pleasure yeah and I heard Mullen WG at one point and I I uh on a podcast and I
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was like Mullen W you got to talk to Matt uh Matt Matt Maduros is the Matt so yeah
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so Katie why is this topic so important for WordPress product
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owners well podcasting is growing more rapidly than most forms of communications media I Googled it and it
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said it's projected to expand by more than five times more than where it already is by 2030 and yet a lot of
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Wordpress Product Company owners like I said a minute ago aren't using it as a marketing channel um I'd say it's
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particularly huge in the WordPress industry and I think Matt will be able to share some stats and information and
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experiences about that later as well and there are lots of podcasts run by Community leaders Product Company owners
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Service Company owners and so on but I haven't really seen anybody talking
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about the impact of podcasting on product companies or whether it brings any concrete opportunities with on
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investment so I'd love to learn more about that and help other people learn too so Matt why would you say it's such
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an important topic specifically for Product Company owners yeah so for me it's it's I was
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talking to Zach about this in the green room but podcasting is just uh another
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medium for you know broadcasting one's message whether it's you're you know you're an indie Creator you're building
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a plugin you're not building building uh a company maybe the size of barn 2 or gravity kit and you're you're out there
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doing the build-in public thing um I gravitate towards podcasting
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specifically because um I enjoy the audio experience as a consumer of
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content audio is my favorite because I can do more stuff in the real world
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while tuning in uh to a podcast I know not everyone could do that but I can so that's why I enjoy creating it and then
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also as a Creator just enjoy the fact that it's a repurposable piece of content it could be turned into a blog
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post it can be turned into tweets it's archivable right it's not this new agage social media Tik Tok Instagram stories
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where these things just disappear I like to have a body of work at the end of the day um you know to to show all the
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effort in uh in this in this channel but why product owners should leverage it is
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for increasing that I think the maybe the proper term is that surface luck
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area the biggest challenge with podcasting is everyone's favorite acronym Roi am I
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getting customers from this is this thing working am I getting sales like like the rest of marketing
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nearly impossible to attribute that unless you're like you know a massive audience and you can do a lot of code
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tracking but it it increases that surface luck area of getting on another
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podcast like this Katie much like yourself going on and guest uh
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appearances broadcasting and spreading your message of bar 2 and how you've built the company supplementing what you
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already do in the buildin public scene with Twitter and just being like really open and transparent about building the
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business these are things that are going to get you that increased visibility that everyone uh is looking for at the
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end of the day like when you're like why why aren't my sales going up sometimes it's just more eyeballs right we just
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need more eyeballs on the website on the brand on the product and podcasting is a fantastic way to do it and it's also the
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what I found to be the most um uh intimate or engaged audience uh
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those that tune into you through audio maybe we'll talk about this later but
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it's always not about the size of the audience but how engaged they are uh and folks who tune in week after week
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listening to you on audio are generally those that are going to be the most engaged so if you only have a hundred people listening to your podcast but a
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thousand people on YouTube those hundred who listen to audio are probably the ones that are that really care the most
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about a brand so cultivating that Community Network whatever you want to call it um in my opinion is uh the most
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important thing you can do with the dawn of AI and and and faceless Brands
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right so when you were coming up with uh your concept for the gravity forums
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breakdown podcast how do how do product owners how should product owners think of topics for their podcast or like what
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their podcast should be about and focus on it's a good question so breakdown has
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been one of actually the more challenging um podcasts that I've produced I've I've often taken the easy
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route easy route with air quotes uh of doing an interview show find a guest
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talk to them record it and maybe do a little bit of editing intro outro and you're
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done where breakdown because we have and we'll talk about this too there's a lot
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of competition in the WordPress space uh myself included right when if I
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joined gravity forms and I was they're like hey they're hiring Matt he's going to run a podcast it's like I already listened to Matt on 7,000 other podcasts
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I don't need to listen a lot of competition from Matt yeah yeah right like I don't need another WordPress
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podcast specifically hosted by Matt um so I tried to turn I I am it's a variety
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show where it's it's aimed at the gravity forms uh customer like here's
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the updates first of all let me zoom out it's short forish 20 to 30 minutes tops
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uh and twice month it only comes out TW every two weeks twice a month so it's not this you know I think what a lot of
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product owners might do is they might fall into the Trap of like I gotta do this podcast thing everyone says do it weekly I was G to pump out content and
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then you literally burn out and then you burn out of content and then you burn out your audience I so I immediately
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went in saying we're not going to do it weekly we do it twice a month it'll be a variety show where it's at the top of
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the show where you get the most listenership it's going to be the gravity forms stuff events updates uh
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releases patches uh new add-ons released etc etc and then we'll go into a mix of
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behind the scen two other segments behind the scenes at gravity forms interviewing somebody from the team
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bring that human side out of the brand and because gravity form has been around
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forever there's people that have worked at the company for over 10 years so there's a lot of uh folks from behind
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the scenes that have been working with the community for for years and I want to bring that voice out and then
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bringing in um folks from around the gravity forms ecosystem to talk about what they're doing with gravity forms
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either as an end user or like yourself Zach as a certified developer or somebody creating and augmenting the
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gravity form software so it's a variety show and it's been pretty challenging to just like keep that mix
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creatively um and while I'm enjoying it and the folks that tune in enjoy it um
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that's the way I approach it there's a you know you can go the the the interview route which is the standard
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way of of doing it but as somebody's been doing it forever I wanted to push that boundary um but also be aware that
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there's a lot of competition in the WordPress space so I have to do something different in order to make this stand out I think that answered
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your question maybe yeah and you know that sounds like a lot of work and more
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than probably what somebody who's just getting started for the first time with their podcast is probably going to take on um can you talk a little bit about
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how much when you say have a podcast what does that entail how much work are
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we looking at uh and you also mentioned repurposable content like can you talk
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about that a little bit more as well yeah so I'll do what every coach says to
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somebody joining the gym in January for the holiday season to your podcast coach
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to your business coach is what's the goal um you know and what's the outcome that you're looking for and with
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podcasting you just have to ask yourself what's your goal if it's just hey I want to grow our existing marketing audience
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it's going to be pretty tough with a podcast right podcast takes takes time
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um there's not this massive distribution Channel like YouTube or you know a silo
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of cont content like Facebook or or Twitter algorithm it's it's very difficult it's rolling up your sleeves and and promoting yourself and doing
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organic Outreach and organic content so it takes a while so you have to understand like what that goal is and
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and what it means to you if it's like a creative Outlet perfect you know but don't be upset when you you start to
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track numbers later on um and then when you start to get into it you want to do
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it that you want to set it up so that you're creatively inspired and that you have some
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understanding of your audience for example the typical
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Business Online entrepreneur starts her podcast she starts interviewing people 12 episodes in she's run out of friends
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there's no one else to talk to and now this thing becomes work right and you burned out those 12 friends in three
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months because you were doing it weekly now you're like oh my God this is this is work I have to Now find other guests
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um I have to critically think about the content and that effort depends back to
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your goals it depends on what your goals are and the effort of editing is
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tremendous right the more you can edit the more that you can spend time crafting that story arc show notes like
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yourself I'm looking at my uh laptop on the right hand side you have an outline for this episode it's
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fantastic like it's all all this work that goes into editing and and pre-production and post-production that
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lot of people don't see very easy to hit record and ship it um and often the best route for folks to go because that's
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where you learn so long way of getting to what's the effort that goes into behind all of this stuff really depends
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on what those goals are I say get started get yourself a halfway decent microphone you could start the interview
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route um but just just know that it becomes work eventually um and have a
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plan for that and we could talk about that you know as well yeah you mention that um unlike a
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YouTube channel or something you're very much having to do the marketing off your own back do you have any advice about
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using the existing distribution channels for your podcast for example WP product
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talk is broadcast automatically to various places which includes YouTube so people could find it in Search and also
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things like apple podcasts do you think that makes a difference and are there any ways that you have in mind to get
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the maximum exposure a new podcast when you bring up YouTube It's a d it's it's
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like asking this audience like should I go with wordpress.org or
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wordpress.com um you know or Wix uh versus WordPress because I won't go too
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deep into this because I could talk about this forever I'm drawn to podcasting as much as I'm drawn to Wordpress because of the open- source
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nature of podcasting is very much the same as as WordPress you have an RSS feed it's your content you can
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distribute it anywhere where you want platforms like apple Spotify and Google are trying to do what they're trying to
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do with our content is silo it into their environments right NE neither of
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those platforms have really helped with distribution as much as YouTube is about
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to so Google uh has recently killed off um Google podcasts uh the app the
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ecosystem everything so Android phones a year from now won't have a a default
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podcast app like they have now they're going to have YouTube music right that's where Google wants to go so YouTube is
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now ingesting RSS feeds from creators so it's like oh cool I can uh distribute my
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podcast on YouTube now and what it's going to do is take those audio episodes from let's say my transistor account and
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put those audio files on YouTube it's just going to be audio they can tune into it uh with the YouTube music app
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but we'll just show the static cover our image or if you have an episode image it'll show that image as the video
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placeholder but all of the what's happening now in the in the ecosystem is everyone's looking at that and reading
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the terms of service with Google and of course Google being Google is you can't have ads on it you know it's just like if you were uploading a YouTube video
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You're behold into those same terms of service will they help you distribute it sure is it the biggest search engine
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behind Google yes you know and it's it's going to help uh but proceed with caution when you start to give you know
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your hard-earned content uh up to these platforms doesn't answer your question but how to push uh
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folks to grow that audience is the typical content marketing wheel create the podcast create the blog post that
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goes with it have a newsletter uh sign up so that folks can sign up for it and try to repurpose as much of that content
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as possible creating audiograms putting out social posts there is no limit it's your time
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right how much can you break this stuff down and spread it out over you know a
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promotional period the promotional period is the most important part of all of this stuff and um it's often
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overlooked because it's not as fun and creating the content is the most fun part uh but I'll be it the most
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important it's why when you go to start an episode like if you're a podcast like if you're thinking about it
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now do I want to do all this work do I want to do it in Seasons maybe 12
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episodes is my season one and I'm going to release this once month and once a
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month that week one that episode goes out for the next three weeks I'm going to be promoting this I'm going to write
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a blog post about the episode I'm going to promote it for that second week week three is going to be all about social be
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promoting it on social week four is all is going to be about audio clips video clips whatever you want to promote
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getting ready for that next episode to be to be released um in the next month
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there's a ton of podcasts available I just want to throw some data uh at you
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if we go to podcas index. org which is like the open source alternative to
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Apple there's 4.2 million podcasts in that index Apple probably has three
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quarters of that over the last 90 days though 462,000 of those 4.2 million were
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actually active so there's a lot of podcasts but not a lot of active
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podcasts so while the number of 4.2 million can be scary you know you're looking at half a million in the last 90
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days that were actually active updated changed modified Etc 30 days 340,000 so
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the competition isn't that great in the in the audio space as it might be for
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like YouTube or Tik Tok we have a user or not not a user a
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listener uh who made as added a comment who says uh the Cadence issue has always
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been for me twice a week Burns through content takes the pressure of the off the content length doing it once a month
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it has to be perfect it feels like and contain everything uh where do you find uh
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striking that balance how do you how do you like to break down episodes into bite-sized pieces and like uh talk talk
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to me about some talk to us about some length like yeah yeah what's yeah yeah in a previous life I worked uh in the
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audio and podcast industry helped a lot of folks start their podcasts the great thing about podcasting is there are no
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rules the bad thing about podcasting is there's no rules uh and you can do it
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however you want to do it so uh for example when I did when I launched the wp minute um you know I have a full-time
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job I have I had a full-time job then three years ago I have a full-time job now and three young kids and I was like
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I I want to launch something about WordPress news but I don't have the time for this so I'm just going to make it a five minute show who's going to stop
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justify minut show that sounds easy Matt right just the five minute show and in my head I was like oh this is going to
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be great uh it's not going to take a lot of time and logistically it doesn't all the things around it take the time um
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you know when I consulted when I used to consult folks podcasting a 40 your average 30 to 45 minute podcast could
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take you eight hours like from start to finish like uh scheduling folks Outreach
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research writing recording editing publishing promoting that's for one episode could be a total time of like
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eight hours so are you prepared for that um so you can shape a podcast episode
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length or your publishing Cadence however you see fit I think the most important part is that you stay
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committed to um to whichever Cadence that that you that you launch with right
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so if you're telling folks it's a five minute show every week you do five minutes every week if it's twice a month
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like gravity forms then it's twice a month um and you'll get requests to say like you should do it less or in gravity
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forms I get a lot of requests that I'd love this to be monthly or excuse me weekly where you're you know you're putting out more content so you know it
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could go either way um but there are no rules and I think whatever satisfies
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your ability your time slot available you can choose that but you know people would always when I was at my old gig it
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was be like hey I see X comedian does uh three hour shows well you don't have to
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do three hour shows you know you can if you have the time and you want to um but
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it doesn't have to be that way five minutes three hours whatever fits for you creatively and and your audience part of what I feel is a risk
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when deciding whether to start an podcast is not just am I going to remain
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invested in releasing this on a Cadence but if I had my marketing person for
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example work on it uh are they going to be around in two years to continue maintaining this and what happens if
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there's a turnover that changes the the person in charge of the podcast uh is that a consideration that
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businesses should think about it's a fantastic question so
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um in the past I've purchased podcasts uh this at my old job purchased podcasts
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uh as um branded content right so it's
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uh purchase a show it's now branded by the company so say gravity kit buys a
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podcast it's now owned by gravity kit and it's you know podcast name presented by gravity kit or how MailChimp does
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this and businesses as well a lot of big Brands you know Whole Foods does this REI has like a ton of shows uh Ford
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there's a lot of big brands that do you know audio um some that do it really bad some that do it really well and um you
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know I think the audience is I think a audience doesn't get enough credit I
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think a lot of folks will understand that maybe a host name change changes a new host um a new format to a show uh
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it's really about communication at that level so if you were to change things even if you like hey I want to go from a
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FIV Minute Podcast to a 30 minute podcast every week you just warm up the
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audience and you know that you're going to lose a percentage of folks that that might not be interested but you warm them up to that like few years ago um I
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remember sitting back and saying look I can't do this this mat report thing anymore too much time day job kids Etc
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maybe somebody would want to buy the Matt report sounded good in my head
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until I actually talked to people and they're like well what are we going to do about you yeah I actually looked at
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that somebody sent it to me because we were looking at um acquiring something that was like impartial content but it
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was all about you as you said so it just didn't fit for us to take it over yeah the particular the challenge was like I
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was too close to the flame so I know how to do it as like a podcast producer and
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you know run with it for exra x amount of years so it can be done and when you step back and you look at television
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shows right and you look at directors changing writer writer uh writers changing on on the on the studio
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whatever um cast of characters like you start to realize like oh it's it doesn't have to be this thing that's infinite
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right and you start to realize why is there only 12 episodes in a season of my
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favorite show I want more it's because it's a lot of work right and you start to realize that as a podcaster like
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maybe seasons is the the secret trick to uh getting one ready for creating a
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podcast because it gives you that moment to say I stop in the summer to take a break I can reset creatively as a
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Creator like mentally I can reset and I can change the trajectory of season two
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or season 15 whatever one you're on when I come back onto on the air and it gives
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you that that break and I think what I was saying about I think the audience will will be able to handle that like I
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think most people like if we all were consuming content someone's like hey I'm going to change this well you're either going to stick around or you're not and
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you have to just kind of like prep yourself as the podcast creator for that but I think it can that reminds me of um
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yast came on about six months ago to talk about branding and he was talking about how they had to do a project to
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deify the company y um before it could be sold and actually that has kind of
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worked hasn't it it is a driving um organization without him so I suppose
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it's the same process yeah um but then the other option is like at WP product
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or we have four rotating co-hosts it's not dependent on any one person even
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Cromwell for example and so yeah Cromwell being the easiest to replace I
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think in most Cas any mat really yeah yeah
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yeah well it's interesting that you mentioned the Matt report and how much work that uh that was for you because um
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we have a segment of the show called story time and I think I'd like to say
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that uh I listened to the Matt report while I was developing gravity view uh
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and while I was creating gravity view with Louise um we it was an inspiration
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to to me uh as uh listening to back episodes and just hearing all these wonderful WordPress people interviews
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and uh not knowing uh you personally at at the time uh your voice became
25:42
synonymous with WordPress professionalism so uh I thank you for for doing the Matt report and kind of
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spurring me on and it was mid July in 2014 I was listening to episode after episode while I was developing and
25:55
working on it and uh and here we are all together so uh thanks for thanks for the
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inspiration and that's uh that's kind of the power of podcasting as a voice in in
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someone's ear saying you can do this too or here's how to do this and that's part
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of why uh mados uh you're here today uh but also
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Cromwell uh that's part of why Cromwell started this podcast is because he
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wanted to have that ation and help people uh who were just starting out their product businesses to to make that
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leap so uh podcasts are powerful and uh I think that's one of the reasons why
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it's an important topic that that people consider as a marketing uh
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Avenue Bob dun do you oh sorry oh please I was gonna say I've Bob dun has said
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that you know because uh at one point I encourage him to do a podcast be get poly hack from gomberg times that said
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that I was a catalyst to podcasting uh Carrie Dills when she was on the airwav said it and all that has really framed
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for me is that somewhere in a word Camp these folks were sitting around a table and looked at me and said well if that
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guy can do it I can do it too right so that's how I have received this but
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thanks for your rewards of encouragement and Matt do you have a a
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story about podcasting in your life for professional career yeah so uh real
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quick like the the Genesis of the Matt report was uh when I was starting my studio at the time um locally to me is
27:39
close to me as Providence Rhode Island and we had a really active word camp with some pretty Heavy Hitters uh Jake
27:45
Goldman Jay trip Jesse fredman Jeff ginsky John D Roes uh myself uh it was
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there was a lot of folks that are really prominent in the WordPress space today that used to be all local here and when
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I started the agency I saw how fast like Jake Goldman was building his business and that I was like how do I how do I do
28:04
that too how do I get all these big WordPress clients and this is you know years and years ago um before before he
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even started tenup it was just on the cusp of starting tup and um I just noticed and and saw really early on how
28:19
powerful the connecting with the community is whether it's WordPress or you know whatever other community you
28:24
might be a part of online or in real life um creating the podcast was was able but
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that's what opened up the door that surface luck area to connect with other agencies um you know Brad and Lisa from
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webdev when I met them and you know they were taking on big clients at the time and they're like hey do you want these
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smaller clients I'm like yes I do like I don't you know I don't have a pipeline like you all do I'll take your uh I'll
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take your smaller clients that you don't want and that's what helped build the business in the early days and then
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leverage the podcast later on on to um land bigger clients so it was a sales
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tool you know later on once we built up the portfolio and the body of work um
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you know and podcasting as long as you don't give up uh it can really open the
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doors to tons of opportunity um that's impossible for me to track but uh it's a
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it's a fantastic surface luck area uh tool I don't know where I heard that
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phrase but I should look it up at yeah what is surface luck I think surface luck the way that I Define it is h a lot
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of us um get lucky in business and there's no way to there's no blueprint
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to get lucky so you just uh create a larger surface area that hopefully you
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can get lucky somewhere around here right and uh podcasting allows you to do that folks are listening to it you're
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guest uh your guest hosting you're publishing others and I think a lot of people the
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the secret to the dirty secret to podcasting that a lot of people won't
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admit is even if you don't listen to someone's podcast and you know they're a
30:08
podcaster you automatically like like you know the effort that goes into it so you're like oh she's a
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podcaster and I trust her on that topic even if I don't listen to a podcast because I knowth automatically she's an
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authority automatically 100 100 episodes in I trust you you're still doing it you haven't given up you got you're you're
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in come on in you know and and that's the thing with with podcasting that's amazing and and that happened locally I
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used to run a local podcast um and at the co-working space that I was in I was
30:39
like two episodes in walked into a coffee shop um around here somewhere and somebody's like oh you're that you're
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the guy that I listen to on that podcast and I'm like you're and in my head I'm like you're listening to the mat report
30:49
like I'm like oh yeah you like WordPress and they're like what WordPress like no like you do the South Coast FM podcast
30:56
I'm like how did that happen like how did that happen so fast um it was just
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that they saw me at the work at the uh co-working space and someone said that I
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did a podcast or they were like oh yeah you're that podcast guy like wow you don't even listen do
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you and Katy how about you uh what's your what's your personal experience with podcasting and as a marketing
31:22
tool well my story links in with something that we haven't covered yet so
31:28
far we've talked a lot about starting your own podcast but my podcasting story
31:33
began and continues largely by being a guest on other people's podcasts so I
31:39
think I started doing this maybe after probably might have been as recent as word camp in Porto last year and there
31:47
was a talk on the power of podcasting and I came out of that not particularly
31:52
confident enough to start my own uh but thinking I should go on other people's podcast because that's a built-in
31:58
audience to spread the word and raise awareness and so on and so um I TK one
32:05
of my marketing team to research different WordPress podcasts and
32:10
basically invited myself on some and um people are generally happy to hear from you they're always looking for guests so
32:17
it's um not difficult to get onto different um podcast and there's so many that whatever you do in WordPress
32:24
there'll be something that somebody else is doing that they be happy to have you as a guest um in your specialism so I
32:30
started off by doing that and then um I now co-host two podcasts both of which I
32:36
was invited on I've never shown any initiative in this personally but um just by accepting these things um it's
32:43
good and it's been a really great learning experience I have no idea of
32:49
the ROI as a product company person um that's impossible to measure because
32:55
particularly the two podcasts that I do there's this one and there's also the a
33:00
do the woo one that I do with Marcus betet who added a comment earlier both of which are about helping people with
33:07
WordPress businesses which are not our Target markets as a product company so
33:12
it's relatively unlikely to generate sales and is hard to measure so I'm sure
33:19
it kind of helps with authority with other product companies it might help with things like collaborations or
33:25
something like that people might be more to work with my company as a result but
33:30
I very much doubt it has much or any impact in direct sales but then with the
33:35
gravity forms one for example that you do Matt then that's very different because that's aimed at your customers
33:42
so maybe people should think a bit more widely than me about what podcast they do and who their target audience is but
33:49
I'm enjoying what I'm doing and I'm learning every week I get actionable ideas on things I can Implement in my
33:56
own business so that's a good experience regardless of whether it generates sales
34:02
directly yeah I I from the you know the business from the
34:07
business side of it like if you're if you're a person who doesn't do much Social you don't do YouTube Instagram
34:14
you don't do podcasting I think if if you're going to do one of those and you want to kind of break into a space uh or
34:21
a market uh appearing on a podcast is a fantastic way um to go about it and it's
34:28
just about like I said before it's about being uh being yourself connecting with other humans and sharing those stories
34:35
right so long as the that's what the host of that podcast is looking for um and you have like some value you can
34:40
bring to that host and Their audience it's a it's a fantastic way and I think more people should be you know uh
34:48
thinking about it like you did Katie and and thinking about doing it well right like not just doing it uh for the sake
34:56
of doing it dust off off their hands and like move on but like actually care about what they're doing because they're sharing the story with 100 people 10,000
35:03
people a million people depends on the size of the audience and U it's just it is a fantastic way and it's about just
35:09
like broadcasting and telling that story why you got into business in the first place right like when you're building websites back in the day and the most
35:16
critical page with your client was the about page and they looked at you and they said I don't know what to write and you're looking at them like it's the
35:22
about page it's about you like you have to write it you know I don't know why I do this why did you get into business like tell that story like what what's
35:29
what's happening here right you know um these are critical components uh the humanity side The Experience side before
35:36
like the robots just do it all for us soon so what about and I whenever I
35:44
think about podcasts for our customers you know there's there's so many things that we could do uh that gravity forms
35:51
uh podcast already is doing and doing probably better than we would uh so what
35:57
do you suggest for things like a change log type of podcast where we talk about the new features and is that does that
36:04
bring enough value like what is the lowest bar for creating interesting
36:10
content for people that that doesn't require you know Reinventing some sort
36:15
of format that or creating some sort of format that is interesting Beyond like I
36:20
want to know I want to converse about all our new features more than we do in our change log and in a different format
36:27
than our blog posts would a podcast be a good way for to do that for example I
36:33
think what you'll find is if if you can build a workflow that isn't like taking
36:39
up all your time to do something like that you should absolutely do it and absolutely test it um knowing the fact
36:46
that and just look at it objectively say how many of my customers are actually going to want this
36:52
content and try it test it survey against it
36:58
right so if I think it's uh so I'm using gravity kit to survey um gravity forms and and gravity kit to display survey
37:05
results for the breakdown podcasts form with 3m. wtfs survey and um I survey
37:13
that I survey the audience I say how where do we fall in your uh podcast
37:19
priority like do you listen to the breakdown podcast in your top top three
37:24
top five top 10 like where do I where do I land and what's the quality of this so
37:29
um I think if you can get folks to tune in a certain percentage like if you can
37:34
look at it and say this percentage of people tune into this real intimate long form change log
37:40
discussion and can you do something with that audience like when you email them and have a conversation with them when
37:46
you release a new episode do they respond back are they taking a survey and telling you that they like this or
37:52
not like how actionable is that audience and that's the that's the measuring stick for me when you're
37:58
trying to do something that's like really pushing the boundaries of like your not so normal marketing channels is
38:04
if if they can take action if this audience is taking action that you're talking to that's a good measuring stick
38:10
um in my opinion because I don't know out of your customers if 50 people listen to that but you're getting 50
38:16
emails every time you you send this episode out that's fantastic because people are really connected to this and
38:22
those are going to be your biggest fans for you know for the podcast I would also say and I have plans for
38:28
this I I won't divulge them entirely here ju but it doesn't have I mean it
38:36
doesn't have to be like the content doesn't have to be the product right not
38:41
to say that yours isn't and probably wouldn't because I know you you push the boundaries of creativity with marketing
38:46
too but it doesn't have to be like here's the updates of gravity forms God I hope this audience wants this right
38:52
and you know I fall into that too like as a marketing channel you look at it you say but I need to get this message
38:58
out yes but I'm going to put it up against two unique segments that I think are really interesting for the for the
39:05
audience but it doesn't have to even be about you know about the product itself
39:12
like Chris badget could probably do a podcast on hiking dog sled racing right
39:19
I would listen to that yeah right brought to you by lifter element I would listen to a podcast of him just walking from his house to his office which is
39:27
probably only like 50 yards but I would just like the thoughts that that goes through that kid's head when he's walking from the house to that office
39:33
must be tremendous the shovels snow and everything yeah and I don't even yeah I
39:38
I think he walks out of the house seven feet of snow and he doesn't even shovel it he just pretends he's on the side of
39:44
a mountain and he just like every day is an adventure Walking 50 yards to his
39:50
house animals food all kinds of
39:55
stuff so we haven't really defined what a podcast is and the reason I say that is
40:02
because my thought in response to Zach's question about the change log side of things is maybe more of like a live Q&A
40:11
or something with customers might be more what the customer would want where because with podcasts you can engage but
40:19
it's not necessarily the direct point of it whereas maybe customers would want a more interactive session but then that a
40:26
podcast what is a podcast what's the difference well again welcome to the
40:32
podcast industry very similar to do you capitalize the p in
40:37
WordPress uh that that's that is not under disput that's what this question is so there's a lot of folks that would
40:44
argue that any form of content that can be turned into audio so you know a
40:50
standard YouTube video or a recording of a webinar um or if you can listen to it
40:55
on any platform more more specifically so technically the way that I perceive a
41:00
podcast is the audio that's distributed through an RSS feed that is openly distributed
41:08
in other words you can tune into it where wherever you want however you want so long as it accepts an RSS feed and
41:15
you can search for it follow it and hit play and listen to it the other argument
41:20
is well a YouTube like YouTubers right especially these days everyone says oh I
41:25
have a on YouTube but it's actually a video show and there's no RSS feed right there's you can't search for it and find
41:32
it but they call it a podcast because they're talking interview style but on
41:37
video only available on YouTube to me that's not a podcast I'm not offended
41:44
that you didn't capitalize the P um but to me it's not something that I can take
41:50
with me on the go and listen to it on any device right it's just a YouTube
41:55
video um so that's the challenge so for me anyway a podcast as long as it's being
42:01
distributed over RSS I can subscribe to it anywhere I don't really care about like the content but technically is that
42:08
portable and can I find it anywhere um it's an advantage for both The Listener
42:14
and the Creator to be openly distributed and what's your opinion I there was I did a search for WordPress podcasts uh
42:21
last year or two years ago forget about it yeah well there was a podcast that
42:26
was uh taking blog articles and having an AI read them out loud uh is that a
42:34
podcast man it is a podcast technically it's a podcast not a
42:39
very entertaining podcast but a podcast um I thought you were GNA start talking about like the phrase WordPress podcast
42:45
because it's literally impossible to like Google doesn't know what to do with that Google doesn't know because Google
42:51
says oh you want to start a podcast on WordPress no I want to listen to a podcast about why would you want to do
42:57
that well because it's a multi-billion dollar industry and one of the most important pieces of Open Source software
43:02
in the world that's why um but yeah I mean you know I don't really judge the I
43:08
there was a time where I didn't care uh that folks called their YouTube channel
43:14
a podcast as long as it was as long as they felt like they were creating
43:19
something and connecting with an audience but the deeper I got into it and I saw just like the industry
43:24
perspective of content ownership and what big platforms will do like n i I
43:29
sort of rolled back and I said you know what you have to attach it to an RSS feed like it has to be open uh openly
43:36
published or else like what's the point of all this
43:42
stuff yeah um that's really interesting it's almost like a philosophical definition of what is a podcast um with
43:50
a bit of Technology it has to be on RSS But ultimately it's a philosophical definition you've given there yeah I
43:57
mean you know without Cromwell here I won't go too deep into the uh tin foil hat conspiracies but my God what if the
44:04
internet actually uplifted the RSS spec years ago what would that have done to
44:10
all of our content uh in distribution across social uh our blog posts our
44:15
audio like if each person could have their own RSS feed for everything like
44:20
would we need these Twitter algorithms and these Facebook ad Network you know like
44:26
that RSS is really important uh for Distributing any content in my opinion
44:32
uh a WordPress blog post or a podcast feed um because without that technology
44:37
like you know I don't know imagine if Kindle Kindle books were like RSS readers you
44:45
know like it was a newspaper but um everyone had their own RSS feed and you could openly distribute
44:51
that the ad me on mastadon
44:57
activity Pub yeah yeah come come toting so uh I think now is a good time
45:05
for the best advice for new product owners on uh using podcasting as a marketing tool Matt I'd love to like can
45:12
you distill all that you've shared with us uh today into like what's your best advice yeah if you're jumping into it
45:20
and you're a little paranoid you're a little stressed out you don't know where to start you don't have to spend crazy
45:26
money um on Hardware which is uh always like the easy thing to do oh I get to
45:32
buy shiny new things and go on Amazon best part of anything that's the best part of anything right it like satisfies
45:37
you in that moment um but then you're like what do I do with this stuff you don't need to spend a lot of money I go
45:43
with the 50 to70 um I don't have it next to me right now uh but ATR 2100 uh or the Samsung
45:51
q2u microphone very easy the most important part after you get your microphone is good microphone etiquette
45:57
getting the microphone as close to the source of audio uh as possible and then when you start creatively thinking about
46:04
the show and this like that advice is advice for whether you're going to start
46:09
a podcast or be on a podcast very important um and then creatively if
46:15
you're like okay I'm a little overwhelmed don't have a lot of time think about your show in a season think
46:21
about 12 episodes think about releasing it once a month to get yourself started and then think about the promotion that
46:27
goes along with every single episode you're going to you're going to be like ah this is I feel like I need to create
46:33
more and it just like the exercises just creating that audio it doesn't have to be once a month get the audience primed
46:41
uh and promote around that and create all of that accessory or repurpose content around it the blog post the
46:47
newsletter the social and you'll start to see this is a lot of work um and it
46:52
can be fulfilling and it can be very useful even at once a month month so that's how I would think about it think about it in Seasons you don't have to
46:58
stretch it out for a year it could be six months but just know that there's an end point it's when you keep it at
47:05
infinum Infinity when you don't stop and you feel like you're on this hamster wheel like oh my God how am I going to
47:10
tell the audience I don't want to do this anymore or that I want to just take a break um going in with seasons in mind
47:17
and having a beginning and an end and maybe a story arc around that is probably the best uh piece of advice
47:24
that that I can that I can give yeah and for my advice uh I am so
47:31
pleased to be on this podcast which used to be a YouTube channel and now we actually have an RSS feed so we are
47:37
officially a podcast uh recently recently yes um is to see if you can
47:43
join an existing podcast podcasts are hard people need uh help to put them
47:49
together and they might welcome you as a podcast co-host or uh as a frequent
47:55
guest um that might be a good way to dip your toes um and my secondary advice is uh
48:02
consider alternatives if you're going to be so regimented and so disciplined with
48:07
your time and effort that you're spending on a marketing channel uh just imagine how much you could get done if
48:14
you were blogging that regularly or if you were that active on social media so
48:19
podcasts are amazing and a very intimate and Powerful media uh medium but uh
48:25
there are other Alternatives and maybe that amount of work could be better spent elsewhere if you're a new product
48:31
owner yeah that's fair um mine would be to think about um what you enjoy and
48:37
where your audience are so if you would really love to have your own podcast and you would also enjoy all the peripheral
48:44
task like marketing it then by all means start one um otherwise then maybe think
48:51
about going on a guest on relevant ones that you found your AUD audience are listening to you don't have to do your
48:58
own and then you can tap into existing audiences and learn a lot and hopefully
49:03
meet some cool people on the podcast um I can't um say the number of people I've
49:09
met on podcasts and then at word camps it's really interesting to have that prior communication with people in the
49:15
community so going on other people's podcasts is a good way to meet people as well as getting your message out
49:22
there that's a great Point uh well that's a wrap for this
49:27
episode uh Matt Maderos thank you so much for joining us where can people find you online where can people listen
49:34
to you more gravity forms.com breakdown uh to tune in to the breakdown
49:40
podcast twice a month and uh the wp minute.com
49:45
uh is where you want to go for your favorite five minutes of Wordpress and breaking news today um breaking content.
49:54
is a limited podcast series that I'm doing with Brian Castle go to Breaking
49:59
content. it's a limited series Brian and I only have so much time we're going to dive into the content marketing side of
50:06
uh what I'm building and what he's building that's awesome thanks for thanks for sharing today uh breaking
50:13
news everybody um so be be sure to follow Matt and uh for our next show
50:18
next week we're going to be discussing how to increase software sales by switching from product videos to process
50:25
videos with a special guest Kevin giri and special thanks to post status
50:31
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50:43
bye