Diving Into Podcast Data With Johnny Dinkel From LaunchPod Media

[00:00:00] [00:00:00] Heather Osgood: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the podcast advertising playbook. I'm your host, Heather Osgood. And I am so excited for today's episode because on today's show, we have Johnny Dinkel of LaunchPod Media. Thank you so much for joining us, Johnny, can you tell us just a little bit about yourself and maybe how you started your company?

[00:00:18] Johnny Dinkel: [00:00:18] Sure. So I'm the CEO of LaunchPod media. We are a data analytics, podcasting agency. We are also full production house, but that's a little ancillary. I, guess. Basically, we're data nerds and we speak fluent internet and we, speak internet for people in the podcasting world, helping them connect to their audience, figure out who they are and how to connect with them.

[00:00:40] Heather Osgood: [00:00:40] So I feel like data and podcast, podcasts, period, really don't go hand in hand. Oftentimes when I'm talking to people, I'll say that podcasts fall between offline media and digital or online media, because data really isn't super rich in podcasting. So I'm curious when you're talking about [00:01:00] data, what exactly does that mean to you and what kind of data have you been able to bring to the space?

[00:01:06] Johnny Dinkel: [00:01:06] Yeah. Podcasting is really kind of like the ugly step cousin of social media, and it's such a black box when it comes to getting information about who's actually downloading and listening to your content. It can be really difficult to understand who you're talking to. so my background before I did this was in language.

[00:01:24]I speak a couple of different languages as an interpreter and translator, and, we always had this debate around what it meant to be native. What it  meant to be fluent in a language. And I had one of my coworkers put it to me in a wonderful way.

[00:01:38] And I think it translates to podcasters as well, which is data and speaking a language is speaking in such a way that makes your audience feel comfortable. I speak Japanese and have for 10 plus years, and I've translated patents. I've worked on everything from, companies I can't mention to hundred billion dollar companies and I'm never gonna [00:02:00] be a native speaker, but at the same time I can speak it in such a way, the listeners are going to feel comfortable.

[00:02:04]So with data, we tried to make sure that the people who are listening to your podcast, those raving fans of your podcast, we know they're listening for and why they're raving and so excited about your podcast, your tribe, and then we help you connect those dots.

[00:02:18] A 24 year old woman living in Nebraska that also really loved dogs and coffee. And, also spend a lot of money at hot topic. Being able to understand who they are to communicate with them can make all the difference in the world.

[00:02:32]Heather Osgood: [00:02:32] Yeah, I think absolutely. you're spot on about that. And I'm curious, how did you end up starting your company? What led you to a place where you felt like that data piece of podcasting was really important?

[00:02:46]Johnny Dinkel: [00:02:46] So as an, as a bonafide nerd, I started a podcast, really to annoy one of my teachers at university.

[00:02:55]I did poorly on a test, in my Japanese class [00:03:00] and I was annoyed and I asked what I did wrong on the test. And they said, we can't tell you cause they use the same test every year, but we'll teach you throughout the semester to help you fix what you got wrong. And I'm like, or you could just tell me what I don't know, so I can know it.

[00:03:18] And I was like, how am I supposed to do well, the next test, if I don't know. and he said, you'll have to pay more attention. And I was like, I was really annoyed. I was like, give it to me again , let me figure out what I wanted to improve. So, I take my frustration out on the internet and I made a podcast called Learn Japanese with Munga Sensei.

[00:03:37]It's I think the number one show for Japanese right now, most countries, I think we're sitting most episodes get a couple hundred thousand people listening to it's really fun. But I decided to push back and I said ,10,000 mistakes till fluid, became my moniker. And, the show started growing people started listening.

[00:03:54] First it was just my mom and my eight brothers and sisters. And then, eventually it rolled [00:04:00] into whole bunch of people listening to this show. To where I was bamboozled and I wanted to be, if I can get, 5,000 people listening, or 2000 people listening, how can I get 20,000 people to listen?

[00:04:11] I started out with a survey and asked people to do polls. And then I started asking them to call a text line and started trying to communicate any way I could. And eventually, I started making systems and processes in place that, helped me really understand exactly who I was talking to. 

[00:04:27] I learned I was talking to, mostly women  about 60%, 65% women between the ages of 25 and 35 who were preparing for a Japanese test of some sorts in the United States. And were also crazy about media online, YouTube, Reddit, they just thrived there. 

[00:04:45] I was surprised about women because Reddit is very  generally male so 

[00:04:48] I started changing my message ever so slightly. I started focusing more on test oriented grammar. 

[00:04:53] I started focusing on passing things 

[00:04:55] and as I translated my message a little bit tweaked it as I made content, that was more [00:05:00] succinct. 

[00:05:01] Anywhere from five minutes and then I made it more narrowed.

[00:05:04] And then I made episode one, two, three, four, they were connected. 

[00:05:06] They liked that. And as I did that, my podcast naturally grew . I was able to pay off college with my podcast and, that rolled into saying, wonder if I could do it for a friend and then three friends.

[00:05:16] And then eventually I now run a company that does it, analytics and data for people in four countries.

[00:05:22]Heather Osgood: [00:05:22] That is amazing. And so my guess is that you essentially sat back and said, I want to know who's listening to this show so I know people are listening, but I want to know more about who's listening.

[00:05:33] Then you took a look around the industry and you saw that information wasn't available. Unfortunately there's not a computer program that can give you that information. And so you decided I need to dig in. Yeah. And really essentially do some heavy lifting to figure out who is listening to my podcast.

[00:05:51] And now you've been able to take that information or that experience that you gained and apply it to other podcasts on a larger level.

[00:05:58] Johnny Dinkel: [00:05:58] Yeah. who and [00:06:00] why. 

[00:06:00] Where are they finding you? What's your footprint on the internet look like, and how are they communicating? Something I found interesting, for example, we did a podcast for a company here in Utah,  that sold, health supplements and they wanted to know who is listening to their show. so we did some data and we dug around and we helped their show grow. We've quadrupled their audience in about eight months. We found that they were communicating well on Facebook, but they weren't using words that people in their industry were using to describe what they are looking for.

[00:06:30] So when they search for them, of course, they weren't going to find them. If you're saying alternative health and they actually are searching up vegan. Then those words are going to come up together. You need to type in vegan. And so by finding how and why and who we are able to speak their language and speaking their language and getting in front of the right people has, catapult their podcast.

[00:06:50] They're one on the top health podcasts, now it Gutsy Health shout out to them. It's been a pleasure seeing people grow because they can communicate with the people they're trying to talk to.

[00:06:59]Heather Osgood: [00:06:59] And [00:07:00] so I think what I hear you saying is that using the words and really in some cases, especially on the internet, it's not just using general words, it's using the specific words, right?

[00:07:12] It's all around that key word. And if, like you said, if somebody is putting in alternative health, that they're going to come up with very different results than if they're putting in vegan. So we come often as podcasters, come to the market with some idea, hopefully of who they're going to be reaching and they're trying to reach that person, but maybe they just aren't using the right words or they're not able to target the audience that will really allow them to catapult their growth. 

[00:07:40]Johnny Dinkel: [00:07:40] So, I think there's two sides to that. One is being able to communicate. And then second, maybe you have really good content and you're speaking their language, but not writing their language.

[00:07:48] And on the same token, you think about how, companies, organizations, are able to communicate with people via advertising. They look for words, they look for market segments, they look for substrates, they look for information. [00:08:00] They can translate how they represent their brands through somebody else and see how that aligns with our customer segments.

[00:08:06] So you have audience segments. Is your audience mostly female versus male? That actually matters when you're trying to communicate with people. How, and where they're looking, where are talking with them on the internet. 

[00:08:16] You need to be able to fluently and  natively, speak their language, and I'm not trying to be cliche, but for it to be truly native, you need to be able to, speak their language in a way that works. And it's so powerful. That's why I do my background language. I can try to communicate with that makes them feel comfortable. The titling of your episodes, your show notes, your blog posts, your social media shareables. All these different things contribute to a persona of who you're talking to, or maybe who you're trying to talk to, and maybe you just need to be put in the right spot.

[00:08:48] Maybe your categories are wrong. Maybe you should be on Facebook, but you're on Twitter. All these things can really weigh into how you grow that show. And then if you have advertisers who they're actually going to be communicating [00:09:00] with. If they don't have that information, they don't want to talk to just a general public, they want to sell their items to people that are in their specific market. 

[00:09:07]Heather Osgood: [00:09:07] Yeah, absolutely. Haven't, we all had that experience where we've been in an online situation where we feel like maybe we're just not quite welcome or the person doesn't just quite get us, but then we've also had those flip side experiences, where as soon as we listened to that podcast or read that blog or join that Facebook group, we are like, this is me. This is, these are my people here, right? Like you feel this connection and that makes you want to consume more of that content and makes you want to be more involved in all the things that they have going on because it's stuff that resonates specifically with you.

[00:09:46]What I hear you saying is that it's about this idea of how do you more deeply understand your audience so that all the content you can create will resonate with this specific person at [00:10:00] such a level that you'll then be able to grow a tribe and a real audience. 

[00:10:04] Johnny Dinkel: [00:10:04] Exactly. having 500 people who are exactly targeted to what you want versus having 20,000 people who are just floating by is a whole different world.

[00:10:13] And I think being able to do that is exactly what I'm trying to trying go after. What LaunchPod Media is then positioned towards, and that's, what's grown our success because we can return that value. 

[00:10:23] Heather Osgood: [00:10:23] Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I really do want to focus here on why this is important to advertisers.

[00:10:29] And one of the reasons that you and I connected is because at True Native Media, we've got all this great content and we're always looking to better understand who our listeners are. And the reason we want to understand that listener is because from an advertising perspective, the very most important thing is, are you targeting the correct person?

[00:10:48] If I know that my consumer is a 25 year old male who likes to mountain climb. That's going to be a very different target market than maybe a mom who just had a baby who [00:11:00] is, now looking at ways to childproof her home. So having that very clear distinction on who your audience is, allows advertisers to pinpoint the shows that they know is going to help move the needle.

[00:11:13] So I'm curious, how are you working within that? How are you working within the advertising space to help advertisers get clear about which podcasts they should be advertising on?

[00:11:27] Johnny Dinkel: [00:11:27] And I'd say in that case, it's translation. So being able to take, if I were to find, the person who listens to your podcast is a, a 78 year old man who really likes model building boats. And I'm able to dig that up. I need be able to translate that information to the advertiser. They want to know keywords. They want to know where they live on the internet. They want to know how active the engagement is. They want to know what the average buy through will be with that. If their models are $5, how many of those $5 models are they going to have to sell or how [00:12:00] many are going to have to listen?

[00:12:01]And so if I can say, Hey, this podcast here is right to your target audience instead of kind of, sort of  to your targeted audience, they're going to have a higher conversion rate. And that's gonna be more valuable to them. Also, they're gonna have repeat customers there cause they know who they're targeting.

[00:12:15] Businesses, at least good businesses are really going to know who they want to talk to. It's often our responsibility to find out who the podcast is talking to, or maybe who they should be talking to if they are saying one thing, but presenting another. And making sure that all three of those things align.

[00:12:31] It's like shooting a gun, you have to line the back of the gun up. You have to make sure the front side is on there. And then you have to make sure all three of those things are in line with your target. So we put the butt of the gun, the front of the gun and the center of the target all in line so that the advertiser, the podcaster and the audience are all as lined up as best as possible so that we can have a straight shot as we can.

[00:12:52]Heather Osgood: [00:12:52] That's one of the things that we've really struggled with in the podcast space a bit is that we haven't had all of the rich data that we want [00:13:00] to be able to create those alignments. And unfortunately, as we take a look at this space still, we're not able to get to that level of, Hey, we've got all of these stats. And I think one of the things that really intrigued me about your company is I feel like essentially you  came up with a solution to that problem.

[00:13:19] And I, I'm curious, if you could speak just a bit about the way your company goes about gathering this information. And as I understand right now, it's a fairly new manual process, but you're looking to try and transition into more of a digital product where you could maybe make this service available to a lot more people.

[00:13:40] Johnny Dinkel: [00:13:40] Correct. It's definitely a manual process. and which is one of the reasons we're able to give such quality content is because we have to pull that manually. So that there's very few mistakes. There's a lot of different things that people can do at home for their own podcasts that LaunchPod does, for example, is, transcriptions.

[00:13:55]So if you took, Google offerings, your podcast through looking at the [00:14:00] keywords that are extracted from your content that you're making and putting into a blog post, your transcription of your podcast is the audio version of a blog post. So there are words and things that you're going to continuely bring up and we take some of those words and , we know that Apple, as well as Google is using your transcriptions to as best they can rank and index your podcast.

[00:14:25] So we try to reverse engineer that. If we said that this was a blog post who would be clicking on this blog post, where are they living on the internet? How often they're getting there? And a lot of these things can be found in places like Google trends or Google Adwords, or, you can go into Facebook.

[00:14:39] For example, if you have an audience that is coming from Facebook, you can identify that with smart links. For example, you can go into Facebook and see what Facebook groups are talking about. You speak with the moderators and asking, you can share your podcasts in their space and then see what type of demographics that people are.

[00:14:54] If you have 40 people like your posts, go and look at those 40 people and see, okay, [00:15:00] these 40 people are, African American women living in Alabama who are super into soap making. And you can see that from their Facebook page. Now of course at LaunchPod, we take scientific samples.

[00:15:11] So if we have a hundred thousand people. We have, 385 people that we scrape their data from on a number of different points, like 18 different points. So we want to make sure ours are industry standard, but, and scientifically acurate, cause we don't want to say one thing and actually have it be another, um, you know, we make sure we have a large enough random sample size.

[00:15:32] But if you're a smaller podcast or working on growing your podcast for your 5,000 downloads, or if you're around 10,000, you can actually get a fairly accurate description by extrapolating your audience in size, and then trying to see what that subsection of people are actually interested in and then see what your alignment looks like.

[00:15:49] So I did Japanese. For my first podcast. And I found there was a lot of stuff out there for beginner level, but my highest listened to shows [00:16:00] were shows that were more in the intermediate advanced area. And so I saw, and I looked around who were people communicating and I was communicating in the basics area.

[00:16:09] So I found people in the intermediate or advanced space where living in different parts of the internet. And so I saw where they were at, how they're communicating with each other. And then I adapted my message in my internal marketing, if you will, to better represent them. And I, then I started making more content around intermediate speakers because I'm never going to be able to compete against companies that have hundreds of thousands of dollars at their back for their show, but I can definitely be in a spot they're not in, which is intermediate level Japanese and Japanese taught by a white guy from Nebraska.

[00:16:39] Heather Osgood: [00:16:39] Yeah. No, I think that's totally amazing. so that's all really great information for a podcaster on how they can better understand their audience. What would you suggest for an advertiser? So if an advertiser is considering podcast advertising and they're looking maybe at.

[00:16:56] You know what I mean? Now there's about 1.3 million podcasts out there. [00:17:00] How could they really dig deeper into the audience that a podcast might be able to provide? 

[00:17:06]Johnny Dinkel: [00:17:06] I would say for an advertiser, looking at a couple of things, you need to focus on how light and how deep you're going. if are you looking at a wider audience, your who you're targeting, what you should, are you gonna need a lot of little shows?

[00:17:18] Are you gonna need a couple of medium shows or are you gonna need one really big show? and then you want to make sure it matches your message. So understanding what you're already using on Facebook. I understand what you're putting on Google, understand we put putting on LinkedIn. And then being able to, accurately research, the same types of shows that are doing that.

[00:17:36] Now, some shows, unfortunately you're not very good at positioning themselves in the spot where you can find them, which is one of the reasons that True Native Media is around and other people who can direct them into finding the right type of shows. But what I would do if I was a young, integral person or someone working at a company, looking to advertise on podcasts, there's a number of different resources that you can use, whether using dynamic ad insertion, or if you're [00:18:00] using, natively read ads for a midroll ad, I would run some experiments because this is a new space for you. And so I would try to find shows that align within what you're doing. There's a number of ways to search for basic shows. Things like Listen Notes or Chartable are great beginner level resource, or entry level resources to be able to start looking for that information.

[00:18:21] In fact, Listen Notes now has an ability where you can download, certain amounts of shows on an Excel form on a CSV file. That had certain words in them or a certain category, for example. And so you can download that bulk data and then you can search through with the LEN function. but then going there and start trying to connect with these shows, using their, digging into their RSS feed a little bit, finding that email to contact them with it's very simple.

[00:18:46]Just open their RSS feed and then use control F and search for the @ symbol. they'll identify the email associated with that account and then run some experiments. I find that one thing that advertisers often miss however, is [00:19:00] podcasting isn't is often with the exception of a couple of categories, evergreen content.

[00:19:06] And because the podcast tends to grow at accelebrated rate, as it gets larger, and people tend to go back to previous episodes , unless you're using dynamic ad insertion. If you're using a natively read ad, that ad is going to continually do more over time or within a six month period or afterwards, that way you can find shows where you can leverage a longterm strategy. Podcast is a wonderful space, but the bigger you get, the sooner it's going to happen. So see, I would view it similarly to how you would if what's the word, television ads and Facebook had a baby. That was how I would view podcasts in the fact that you may not know exactly where it's going sometimes. Now, LaunchPod Media can definitely help you with that. My goal isn't plug you here, but simply understand what the services that LaunchPod offers, but also understanding that, these are the people who are on podcasts are innovators in very active within their community.

[00:20:00] [00:19:59] They're diehards. If you can get in front of right diehards, it will often be more lucrative in the long run than a Facebook ad or a random placement on YouTube ever will be. 

[00:20:10] Heather Osgood: [00:20:10] I think that you said the most important word, which is in the long run. I had an advertiser, email me this morning and he said, Hey, we really need to get some ads on.

[00:20:22] And this is somebody I've been talking to for a while, but hasn't actually pulled the plug on a campaign. He's we have a big push going in the next two weeks and we need to get some ads on ASAP. And as much as we want to get a campaign started, if we start an ad tomorrow that isn't necessarily going to result in a huge spike in customer acquisition in the next two weeks. Podcasts are very slow moving, but I think what is so powerful about podcasts is the results that they produce ultimately are head and shoulders above many other mediums out there.

[00:20:57] A hundred percent. 

[00:20:58] But it just takes time. [00:21:00] And I think unfortunately, so many companies are looking to, I want to invest today. I want to see a return tomorrow. And if I don't see that return tomorrow, then that must mean it didn't work. And really, that's just not how podcasts work. 

[00:21:14]Johnny Dinkel: [00:21:14] I would remember that .A healthy market strategy involves things that are fast, medium, and slow. Podcasts  leverage with scale, right? If you're advertising on Joe Rogan, you're going to get faster results than if you advertise on a smaller show.

[00:21:28] Which is most shows. So it's going to scale with the size. But, if you want to get some, medium-sized podcasts, 10, 15, 20,000 downloads per episode, or per month, or however you want to measure those demographics. If you're going for longterm and you're going for evergreen content podcast has higher engagement than any other medium that I know of.

[00:21:48]What's the average email of the Facebook ad is what? Eight seconds maybe. It's five seconds there and then YouTube is eight seconds. Podcasts, 36 minutes. 

[00:21:58]Heather Osgood: [00:21:58] When you look at other mediums, [00:22:00] they are literally just seconds. And it's like when you compare the minutes that people consume podcasts, content it, to me, it doesn't even stack up. The engagement level is so incredibly high. 

[00:22:13]Johnny Dinkel: [00:22:13] I asked this to advertisers when I speak with them, if you could sit in the car with somebody every single day for a month and they choose to listen to you, they invite you into their car and you can talk with them on their commute every day for a month for 36 minutes. Would you rather have that or would you rather have a five second ad on something when they're looking for something else?

[00:22:34]That's your option. Those are the differences. Now I got, you're going to try to sell them on day. One of getting in the car with them. However, when they invite you into the call and you talk with them time and time again, and you build a relationship. I will go there first a hundred percent of the time, instead of going to that random man who I just want to click through, because I want to watch my YouTube video.

[00:22:53]Heather Osgood: [00:22:53] Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So you mentioned, I know that you do work with a lot of podcasts that you also work with [00:23:00] advertisers and you mentioned, kind of test campaign or experimenting with what works. Can you tell me based on the advertisers that you've worked with, what a test campaign looks like.

[00:23:10] Johnny Dinkel: [00:23:10] Sure. what I usually recommend is with anything is like an AB test. So I tell them let's close our eyes for three months because we want to see something work in the longterm. This is not a flash in the pan. Your company is not flash in the pan and I do advertisement that's the same.

[00:23:25] And then what we try to do is we try to focus on message. And then we also tried to focus on delivery. Who's delivering the message and what are they saying? We'll usually come with a number of different messages depending on the size of the campaign. And then who's saying them, in what way, they're saying them.

[00:23:40] So podcasts, we find successful podcasts fall into three different categories. Short form content, which is five to 22 minutes. Mid form content, which is 43 minutes to 1 hour 15 minutes. In long form, which is an hour and a half plus there's trophs in between there. Let's focus on shows that have good engagement, that we can see their numbers that are focused on your target audience.

[00:24:00] [00:24:00] And then let's see who does it, and let's focus on how they're saying it. Maybe dynamic ad insertion is a good idea for your company. And maybe it's better to have this person rep your company for 30 seconds, 60 seconds in the middle of their show and give their stamp of approval. And let's see what works better.

[00:24:17] When we have those numbers back and we can see what happened over the course of those three months, and we can see who engaged that podcast over time. Then we can start making some educated decisions because I think one thing that every good company wants is they want those numbers and they're not going to get those good numbers unless they can hold their breath for a little while.

[00:24:37]Heather Osgood: [00:24:37] Absolutely. I love that. I think that is, you're not a flash in the pan company. You shouldn't be a flash in the pan advertising. You do need to hold your breath a little while with podcast advertising, but tell me how exactly are you measuring engagement?

[00:24:51] Johnny Dinkel: [00:24:51] Sure. Now there's a couple of ways you can measure engagement. And it depends on the podcast that you're advertising. For a traditional way, you can go through smart links, which is [00:25:00] an opportunity for people to add, the podcast through a link that you can follow into their show notes, which is probably the most direct way and simplest way.

[00:25:08]Another way you can track it is, there's places such as BuzzSumo and number of other places where you can track the engagement of certain content by how often it is shared on the internet. You can see at what rate that show is being shared so that your advertisement is being shared at what rate. You can also test engagement by if they have any ancillary type of media, such as a headliner video, or if they have a YouTube channel or if they have anything that is ancillary, that directs back to their podcasts, whether that's put as a traditional advertisement or simply share on their page.

[00:25:40] Or if they make shareables for their guests, you can often track those in a very small way you do to a social media campaign and you can see what the engagement is there. You can often tell also by the podcast download rate, if it increased or decreased over time. because we're doing a long form story it's the same type of way that we measure [00:26:00] growth via a television or a radio ad, which should we see what the increase in sales looks like over an extended period of time. So we may not be able to tell directly where that often comes from, but we know we can start cutting things and adding different things and see how that attributes to our overall overtime growth.

[00:26:19] Heather Osgood: [00:26:19] Awesome. That those are some really good recommendations. I think a lot of people don't look at, and I do think what I hear you saying that is so important is look at the engagement that the podcast has before you decide to move in, into doing a campaign with them. And by looking at all of these different places on the internet, where they have their digital footprint, in essence, you can see how much engagement their audience has.

[00:26:43] And if that audience has a level of engagement with the content. Then chances are that audience is going to be more likely to have strong engagement with the advertiser.

[00:26:53] Johnny Dinkel: [00:26:53] Correct. And that's something good for podcasters to keep in mind too. If they have a sponsorship now truly recommend with, along with [00:27:00] advertising, they're trying to get sponsors and sponsorships are awesome because you can negotiate things, I feel, a little bit more often, depending on who the sponsor is. If you're a podcast that focuses on barbecue and you want a barbecue sauce to recommend you, You can reach out to them often more directly, or have someone reach out for you to negotiate that.

[00:27:18] But it's the same reason that rappers get repped by a certain brand or a sponsor like Puma or Nike is because you want them talking about you regularly. Becoming part of the natural conversation that's already taking place is, something that should constantly be happening, trying to be native or fluent in how you're speaking to them should always be in mind.

[00:27:39] Heather Osgood: [00:27:39] Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I totally agree. How are you tracking results from the campaigns that you work on with your advertisers? Are you doing a unique URL or a promo code, or how are you guys doing?

[00:27:50] Johnny Dinkel: [00:27:50] We try to come upon agreed upon metrics beforehand. So some people are trying to grow their audience and some people are trying to see those conversions right away.

[00:28:00] [00:28:00] So if you have a company that sells widgets and the way they tend to get their widgets sold, is people going to their website? I say, okay, let's seeMwhat's the growth for people coming to your website is let's look at the number. Let's look at the back links. Let's look at the page, domain strength over that period of time.

[00:28:18] And let's see if that grows with the podcasts that we're using, because. I'd be able to see if they're coming direct from the podcast, but if that's one of the few marketing campaigns you're running, if we turn it on or turn off, we can see if there's a difference there. That's what I mean by AB testing, right?

[00:28:32] At the same time, if we can come up, if it's selling widgets and selling widgets, come be a phone call. Many people, especially if you have a larger audience, you can often see things like, promo codes or mention my names. Those tend to work sometimes as well as like those clicks or links. But I try to come upon agreed upon what that means for you.

[00:28:49] Now, if you want more people to visit your blog post. If you want to see higher engagement on your social media as the company. Choosing where the podcasts are, should direct that people who are listening to their show should be [00:29:00] explicitly defined beforehand. Because if you put up a podcast, say, we want you to write our company and they say, cool, and you have 14 different products and they choose which one.

[00:29:09] And then you spike in a certain product. That's useful information. But if they are saying, Hey, check out this company and you just get a whole smorgasbord of people through there. how are you supposed to know. Yeah, we're trying to narrowly define that as best as possible is a very good way of seeing what those indications most likely are coming from.

[00:29:25]Heather Osgood: [00:29:25] I think one of the things that you said that I think is so important is defining those goals before you start the campaign, because if you don't know what success looks like in the end, then how do you measure that success? Do you find that people are more interested in kind of branding when they come to you?

[00:29:43] Are they looking for that branding? Are they looking to grow their subscribers to their blog or looking to, you know, just create awareness of their product. Or do you find that more of these widget type companies are really looking to actually move product?

[00:29:57] Johnny Dinkel: [00:29:57] I see about half, honestly. I find that [00:30:00] the larger amount of success tends to be driven on a brand oriented strategy.

[00:30:04] I'm usually focusing people on absorbing their media or trying to get people to engage with them on a social platform. This is particularly true for larger ticket items. If people are trying to sell a $5 widget versus trying to, bring brand awareness to selling a Porsche, for example, you can see the longterm strategy that's available there.

[00:30:22] It's a bigger purchase and we see a lot more success down that road. Simply for the fact that, the podcasters tend to have higher engagement and a better relationship that a traditional advertisement does. People who are trying to sell widgets. are often doing a lot of experiments at once in my experience, personally and while the brand is important, they usually have a large amount of competition. I believe brand wins at the end of the day. And so if you can get more people to interact with what you're doing and put your name on things. Branding tends to be the more successful, but, it also depends on that delivery because again, there's three parts.

[00:30:55] Heather Osgood: [00:30:55] Sure. Yeah. That's interesting. And I totally agree with what you're saying in terms of delivery and messaging. [00:31:00] I've heard that over and over again, that if the host does a good ad read, and if the, the recommendation, the messaging is positioned a certain way that that can have huge consequences in terms of results.

[00:31:14]I wanted to visit one of the comments you made you said that you find with widget companies, that a lot of them tend to do a lot of different kind of marketing tests, simultaneously. And I have definitely found that as well. They're in this position where they're looking to grow, they're looking to see how they can get more customers.

[00:31:35]It's about quantity for them, right? It's not about selling one Porsche. It's about selling a thousand widgets tomorrow. and I find that can be challenging, but also I'm sure what your thoughts are about kind of frequency of impression. So we know that, about 30 to 40% of the U S population is listening to podcasts.

[00:31:56] And when we look at frequency, we know typically somebody needs to [00:32:00] hear about your product seven to ten times before they make a purchasing decision. So if you thought a widget company they're advertising in podcasts, and let's say I'm a podcast listener and I hear their ad three or four times, but then I go on Facebook and I see a couple of Facebook ads for them.

[00:32:15] Maybe I'm on Instagram seeing their, or YouTube, or what have you, do you feel like all of these kind of sporadic outreach campaigns, can they work together to help reinforce one another? Or do you feel like the rapid fire in many directions just tends to complicate the messaging overall? And that it's better to stick with one core strategy?

[00:32:35]Johnny Dinkel: [00:32:35] You're asking if a burst campaign is more effective than a longterm drip campaign, essentially. So, I would say, I tried to pull back against the burst campaign idea for a simple fact that, we're going to see 80% of your purchases probably come through 20% of the mediums.

[00:32:54]If you're doing television and podcasts and radio and YouTube and Facebook and [00:33:00] Instagram and Twitter and LinkedIn and Google and everything else, then how are you going to tell where all of them came from? And it's the company's responsibility to, at least in my opinion, in order to protect and grow their company, to be cognizant of where their ad revenue, where their ad revenue is going and where those conversions are coming from.

[00:33:20] And rarely if you're not, again, if you're not flash in the pan company, don't do flash in the pan things. Now, some burst campaigns worked very well for things like Kickstarters. They were very well for things to have a limited quantity. They worked very well for things that have a short enough stock.

[00:33:35] They worked very well for things that are trying to drive out initial buzz around and a specific season. If you sell Christmas stockings, you better jump on everything. If you sell mother's day flowers, then why are you advertising in June? it definitely comes back down to the company and their target audience.

[00:33:51] However, if you want to see real results from podcasting in my personal experience, as well as my company's experience, having something come out regularly to their [00:34:00] targeted audience at a higher amount of engagement, now I'm biased. I run a podcasting analytics agency. But, from what the math seems to even out with is if I can have more sitting time with someone's ear and have a relationship with them with a very targeted audience, I should have higher amounts of conversion over a longer period of time.

[00:34:17]Heather Osgood: [00:34:17] So looking at your company and where it's headed, as we've talked about the, and the reason I'm so intrigued with all of this is because I feel like the industry needs what you're providing so much. And when I look at LaunchPod Media, and I think, okay, you guys are doing things on a really high touch level, which is amazing, but also tends to be a little more pricey, take a little bit longer.

[00:34:42]When you look at the development of the company, do you feel like you're going to be able to take all of these elements and kind of the secret sauce that you've put together to get this rich data and put it on a platform or create it in a way. That people can use it or maybe consume it in a larger, [00:35:00] at a larger level.

[00:35:01] Johnny Dinkel: [00:35:01] I hope so. it depends on how a couple of things change on the internet and what access we are allowed to have to certain things. There are some things that requires to be clever about what we do to be able to get access to the information that will accurately inform our decisions. As well as, having correct controls in place so that we don't give ancillary data or data that accurately represent the avatar that is created by the audience.

[00:35:23]But my goal of my company is I want to be the best podcast analytic company that no one's ever heard of. My product may be down the line, but I like working, in the back. Some people will want to be on the stage. Some people want to turn on the spotlight. I would love to turn on the spotlight and make sure the microphones are working.

[00:35:41]People like True Native Media people, like Cast Media, people like Parcasts, Spotify. If you want to give me a call, I got you. But I want to be able to provide that data information to people so they can make that good money. And I can keep returning that value and the information that will help them make oodles of money so that I could, do whatever people do that make oodles of money.

[00:35:59][00:36:00] Heather Osgood: [00:35:59] Very cool. just to wrap up the conversation here, what would you say would be your top recommendation for a podcast or for what they should be doing to understand their audience better?

[00:36:13]Johnny Dinkel: [00:36:13] Let's say you're a moderate sized podcast, you've been doing this for a minute and you have a definite, audience, maybe a couple thousand downloads per episode.

[00:36:20]I would do my best to find a way to communicate with them. Whether that's put SpeakPipe on your podcast, webpage, if that is opening up a Instagram that allows people to ask questions of you and communicate with you. There has never been a bad situation where you engage with your audience more.

[00:36:40]And if I may add a second, hold your breath. so many podcasters may be questioning if their podcast is good enough to get advertising potentially. and that's a good thing that you want to get there. However, podcast advertising is maturing and it's definitely not going to go away anytime soon.

[00:36:55] It's not going to disappear. If you try to grow your audience and make your audience mature, but don't jump [00:37:00] on the first ad or first affiliate program that on the internet, simply because you could make $5 from it and pay for your microphone.

[00:37:07] Heather Osgood: [00:37:07] That's really good advice. Yeah. I, and I think one of the things that I love podcast in so many ways, but one of the things that I think is challenging about podcasts it feels like a very one sided conversation. And what we need to do is we need to open up that dialogue between the audience and the host, right? So that we know what our audience is thinking feeling so that we can help address that.

[00:37:32] On the kind of same side as the, as advice for podcasts, what kind of advice would you give? To an advertiser if an advertiser was looking in the podcast space. What do you think are some of the most important things they should know?

[00:37:45] Johnny Dinkel: [00:37:45] And I love this question because, this is the first time machine in the 21st century we've ever had.

[00:37:51] If you look at the growth rate and the evolution of blogs, the evolution of social media, the evolution of the internet as a whole, [00:38:00] we have very few experiences where we can go back and see, something grow that, that hasn't already grown already. So if you go back in time, podcasting is following a very, very similar trend to social media back in the early two thousands, and same for money blogs for of all things.

[00:38:18]As well as crazy as it is URLs. If you could go back in time, if you're backpacking company like Cotopaxi, David Smith is one of my personal heroes, so if you're listening to this David Smith, I want to work with you on this. If you're a backpacking company and you could put ad dollars into blogs when they were cheap in 2005 or 1995 and backpack.com, how much would you pay right now for that opportunity?

[00:38:43] Right now, is that opportunity in podcasting. Podcasting is not going away. If anything, in the past four years prove that podcasting is here to stay and we're here to grow .

[00:38:51] And if you want to have podcast advertising that is still going to be evergreen in twenty years from now. Then I'd be putting my money on it, [00:39:00] nickels over dimes. Dimes over nickels. Because it's going to keep being worth them. And the blogs that are, they're already mature and asking for all of your money, the influencers there, they know how to price themselves now.

[00:39:09] And the Facebook pages, they have millions of followers. These young podcasters who are hungry are going to keep posting content and their podcast content, they even stopped is still going to be worth something. So don't wait, get something that is evergreen and not going to die because you are going to wish you did in ten years.

[00:39:25] Heather Osgood: [00:39:25] Yeah, that's awesome. Johnny, thank you so much for being on the show today. And I have to say out of all the people I've talked to, this is going to need the one episode that I'm going to have to go back two and listen to a few times because I feel like you really gave some great insight and information that I don't hear every day.

[00:39:41] And I spend a lot of time, in the podcast ad space. I'm so excited that you were able to be on the show and to provide this information. Where can people find more information out about you.

[00:39:52] Johnny Dinkel: [00:39:52] Sure. If you want to follow us, you can go to pretty much any social media source and look at LaunchPod Media. We're just starting to get on social media again.

[00:39:58] If you'd like to connect with me [00:40:00] personally, the best place is probably Instagram, where I am at  TH E D I N K E L I S T.

This transcript is not edited.

[00:40:08]Heather Osgood: [00:40:08] Thanks so much for being on the show again, and I wish you tons of success. And I also really hope that everyone takes this advice to heart and take some of these practices and puts them into play.

[00:40:20] So have a great day and we'll talk to you guys again soon.

[00:40:22] Johnny Dinkel: [00:40:22] Cheers, everyone.