You Will Need An Unignorable Advertising Agency Podcast Strategy

I recently wrote a white paper on how to create a successful advertising agency podcast. “9 Unignorable Reasons Why Your Advertising Agency Should Not Podcast” covers learning from my 15-year podcast marketing journey and provides the pros and cons of podcasting. Even better, the doc is designed to guide you through an advertising agency podcast strategy that will deliver a must-listen-to podcast show. Here is how I start the 3,000-word white paper:

What’s Up With Podcasting?

I recorded my first podcast in 2007 when I owned the Portland advertising agency Citrus. After recording 18 shows, I gave up.

Why did I give up? It was just too early in the podcasting wilderness to put the time and effort into the show. I had great conversations with an editor of ADWEEK Magazine about the future of digital marketing and the growing power of Google as an ad platform (she was right); a business development guru that grew Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Worldwide, and two with the father of podcasting itself. You can hear a couple of those early interviews in my current podcast series “Advertising Stories”.

I recently gave up again.

I just ended my latest podcasting series. Why? Last June I had a plan to test a series of podcasts to see if this audio platform, which has grown exponentially since 2007, could drive my awareness and leads to my advertising agency business development consultancy. My plan was to record 40 shows between May and December 2020. These are really good interviews with cool, smart advertising people from New York to New Delhi… and I am a good interviewer. But, despite doing lots of things right, I have seen no appreciable business gain from all of this work. Some pain, no gain.

Which brings me to this instructive missive.

OK, that was the intro. You can get the white paper by subscribing to my occasional email newsletter (see the links on this page) or by contacting me at peter@peterlevitan.com

A Winning Advertising Agency Podcast Strategy – How To Be Unignorable

In the last section of my advertising agency podcast recommendations doc, after my take on some “how-tos”, I discuss how to create a podcast that is well-targeted and will be hard to ignore. I stress hard to ignore (by your cherished target market) because the list below covers the things that you will undoubtedly compete with for your future client’s work-life attention and time:

• The client’s actual 8 to 7 management and marketing job.
• 72 daily emails.
• All the incoming biz dev messaging coming in from your advertising agency competitors that are vying for the same client’s attention.
• Facebook.
• LinkedIn.
• Instagram.
• YouTube.
• TikTok.
• SMS text messages from Gary Vaynerchuk.
• Clubhouse. Yikes, now Clubhouse.
• And, a world of a zillion general podcasts from small players like The New York Times, Campaign Magazine, and NPR. Even worse, you will not be alone in the growing world of 30 to 60-minute marketing and advertising agency podcasts.

How To Get Loved? Here Is A Sample Advertising Agency Podcast Creative Brief

To help aim advertising agencies along the path to unignorability, I created a Podcast Creative Brief for the fictitious Giant Gorilla agency. It is meant to be a guide to how to build a podcast strategy that targets the agency’s key target – CMOs at hospitality marketing companies. The goal is to create a very focussed + must listen to podcast that will become loved and cherished by the hospitality industry. A valuable listen.

CREATIVE BRIEF: Giant Gorilla Agency

 Product/Service: “The Marketing Journey” Podcast

January _1_2021

 Background

London’s Giant Gorilla agency specializes in hospitality industry marketing.

It has been successful in building a large client base across a range of hospitality industry subcategories. Giant Gorilla is known for its strategic approach, data expertise, high ROI programs, and for its business insights and social media channels.

It is time to move this energy into podcasting.

What is the objective of the project?

Create and produce a daily, brief, and unignorable podcast for the hospitality industry.

A benchmark: The Marketing School podcast from, Neil Patel and Eric Siu, is an example of a daily listen. Each show averages 5 minutes.

Who are we talking to?

Listenership will include food and beverages, lodging and recreation industry corporate marketers, business owners, and related press.

What do they currently think?:

The hospitality industry took a major hit in 2020. We expect a slow but steady revival in 2021. Current trends point to growing short trip travel and a resumption of international air travel by the third quarter of 2021.

The industry is ripe for the consumption of marketing information related to category growth and a return to ‘normal’.

The essence of hospitality has changed and Giant Gorilla is uniquely positioned to be a leading voice in industry marketing.

What do we want them to think and what action do we want them to take?

We want the industry to view Giant Gorilla as the leading advertising and digital marketing voice and marketing communications agency in the hospitality industry.

What is the message that will move this target audience to action?

Giant Gorilla’s The Marketing Journey hospitality podcast delivers business-building information, insights, and brief interviews – every day.

“Give us eight minutes every morning and we will help you fill seats, beds, and happy customers.”

Program Elements:

The five-minute The Marketing Journey show will be published every weekday at 2 PM GMT.

Giant Gorilla’s COO Nancy Greene and Creative Director Jill Davis will host The Marketing Journey. Nancy will use her past broadcast experience to lead the discussions. Friendly, intelligent banter will rule.

From time to time, the show will bring in Giant Gorilla’s leading thinkers (for example: CTO Sandy Goddof on TikTok and travel); current clients; and guests from across the industry.

For production efficiency, we will gang record five shows every Tuesday afternoon unless there is late-breaking industry news.

The production team is TBD.

What are the support points?

Timely topics will include news about the business of hospitality: industry trends, Covid related issues, what’s hot in marketing, new business models, and a range of discussions on the constant evolution of hospitality marketing, with a concentration on digital marketing.

Great Guests = Traction & Unignorability.

We have already booked interviews with the CMO of InterContinental Hotels; Shake Shack owner Danny Meyer, a very successful European Airbnb host, and the CTO of Hotels.com.

What is the brand’s character?

The Marketing Journey is super smart, knowledgeable, and curious – all with a touch of humor.

What is mandatory?

Each show will be broadcast on all of the major podcast platforms and will be supported by individual show landing pages.

Each slow will promote Giant Gorilla’s hospitality industry expertise.

Marketing

See The Marketing Journey marketing plan for detailed information.

The Advertising Agency Must-Do

Treat podcasting like you would any business development platform. Do a SWOT analysis, do a Pro-Con, develop that unignorable idea and test it out with some industry friends before you commit. Then build the podcast team and calendar and go for it.

OK, one more idea… call me up. Hey, test your idea on me.