Jeremy: 00:01

One of the things that is baked into podcasting is there's both entry and exit friction. So it's really hard to get somebody to click play on an episode for the first time.

Justin: 00:08

Mhmm.

Jeremy: 00:09

But there's also this inertia, which is when they are a regular listener, they just build a habit around it and they keep doing it.

Justin: 00:15

There are baked in advantages to podcasting that you don't get with other content. The initial threshold to overcome is greater. But once they commit, you've got something special there.

Jeremy: 00:28

As a challenge to us as creators, we have to assume that people who aren't listening to us right now already have those top three shows in their feed. And so this is the challenge that we're up against. Alright. So, Justin, I'm curious if you were to estimate how many podcasts are you currently subscribed to in your app of choice? Pocket Casts, I believe?

Justin: 00:49

Yeah. Probably a hundred.

Jeremy: 00:51

A hundred. Okay. And how many of that hundred have you listened to in the last week?

Justin: 00:58

Maybe seven or eight.

Jeremy: 01:01

Interesting. So I actually did the math on mine. I looked through and I actually keep my subscription list list a little bit more, cleaned than you do. I have 33 shows that I'm subscribed to right now. 22 I have ever listened to.

Jeremy: 01:15

So there's 11 shows I'm subscribed to. I've never even listened to a single episode, a single minute of any of those. There's kind of that like you buy the book because you're like, I want to learn what's in this book but you can't bring yourself to read it or it feels too daunting or whatever. So I've got 11 of those. Of the 22 that I've listened to, 19 I've listened to more than one episode, which is actually kind of interesting.

Jeremy: 01:34

So the shows that I do listen to one episode of, I tend to actually listen to more. So that's that's good. So we got 33 total. 22 I've listened to. 19 I've listened to more than one episode of.

Jeremy: 01:43

Of those nineteen, sixteen I listened to at least 20 episodes or more. So a lot of, like, you know, loyalty to that show. Five shows I've listened to in the last month, and only two shows I've listened to in the last week of the 33 total shows that I've subscribed to.

Justin: 01:57

Oh, interesting.

Jeremy: 01:58

So, you know, your listening habits are clearly a little bit different than mine. But I've been thinking a lot about this idea of how much bandwidth the typical person has to listen to podcasts compared to other media. And then I did the numbers here and I was like, I bet this is roughly true for most people. And your actual ratios here are probably quite similar to mine where you've got seven or eight shows you listened to last week, a hundred subscriptions. And so this is kinda just got me thinking more about, like, the dynamics of podcasting as a platform and some of the the constraints that are unique to podcasting that don't exist for other platforms.

Jeremy: 02:33

Is this something you ever think about?

Justin: 02:34

Yeah. This is so fascinating. And and you you're bringing it up that way. I I mean, I'm sure some people are feeling like that's a little, disheartening to hear, like, how can my show get one of those slots? But I like this framing.

Justin: 02:51

Here's the reality. I walk to work every day and walk home. That's twenty five to thirty minutes on my way down and twenty five to thirty minutes my way up. Maybe I'll listen again if I'm doing the dishes or chores at home. So if a show is thirty minutes, I can listen to two or three a day.

Justin: 03:08

If a show is an hour, I can listen to one to one and a half a day. And I'm, I think, in the upper tier of consumption. You know? I'm listening to a lot of shows.

Jeremy: 03:19

And I think it's interesting to note too before we get into this that I think people have very different consumption habits. So you mentioned that you listen to maybe two to three episodes a day. I actually do roughly similar. Now parties, I didn't count client shows that I audit because that's not really my personal listening time. But I am definitely a binger.

Jeremy: 03:36

And so I will find a show, I'll become obsessed with it, and I'll listen to 10 episodes a week, but it's only of one show really. And then I'll get, you know, tired with that, and then I'll move on to another one and they'll kind of go in cycles. Whereas you, it sounds like heavier kind of stable of shows. So Yeah. There are some different kind of listener behavior patterns here, but I think if we can kind of better understand the platform constraints, the things that are baked into the medium of podcasting, there's both some opportunities that I think come with podcasting that, other platforms don't have and also some severe limitations.

Jeremy: 04:05

But I think we can understand what these are. We can actually design for them and hopefully get to that kind of top slot in our listeners' lives. Mhmm. So the the thing we're gonna start off with the data like we always do, there's a couple of things here that I I think are worth, noting. For all the math nerds out there, we're gonna get into, your favorite part of the episode here.

Jeremy: 04:24

In the the 2024 podcast marketing trends report, the typical episode from our respondents was thirty five minutes. Mhmm. And so I, of course, then went to wonder, oh, okay. So how many episodes make up a day? We've got the twenty four hour schedule, but I think it's actually time to move to the podcast episode driven schedule of the day.

Jeremy: 04:41

And so in a twenty four hour day, that is fourteen hundred and forty minutes, that equals 41 episodes a day. You could fit 41 of those thirty five minute episodes. If you listen back to back to back to back to back, 41 episodes a day in sixteen hours, that's basically your waking time. You could fit in 27 episodes. And then if you got we've got four hours.

Jeremy: 05:01

I thought, okay. That's a pretty aggressive podcast listener here. That's a lot of time spent listening to podcast. That's six episodes. Yeah.

Jeremy: 05:08

And so six episodes even for a heavy listener. I'm curious if you're thinking about your engagement on Twitter or TikTok or YouTube shorts. Like, how many pieces of content do you think you engage within a typical day in that time or less?

Justin: 05:21

I mean, in for all types of content, it's in the thousands. Probably in a day, I'll bet you I scroll through hundreds of posts on, social media, like LinkedIn, blue sky, Instagram, and then you think about Instagram reels. And then if you get sucked into TikTok or any of those that you I mean, you can be scrolling and flipping through content for hours. So there's some types of content. People are consuming a lot of units.

Justin: 05:50

You know, you have time in your day for one or two podcast episodes and maybe one or two TV shows if you're really dedicating a lot of time to content, you know?

Jeremy: 06:01

It's interesting because, you know, we're running some numbers here and saying, like, okay. How many episodes could you fit into a day? Edison Research, they always put out the infinite dial report every year. And so they actually do ask podcast listeners how many episodes do you listen to on average per week. And I looked up the past several years and it's generally around eight.

Jeremy: 06:19

Yeah. The typical podcast listener listens to eight episodes a week. And so I think the thing that just jumps out to me here, that's basically like one show and maybe that means one creator a day. And so you're thinking about you can consume hundreds or thousands of pieces of content from a thousand different creators you could kind of engage with in some way on other platforms. Typical consumer maybe only has room in their life for, like, eight different podcast creators, and I think that's even a little bit, maybe, generous.

Jeremy: 06:48

I think most people are probably fewer. And so it just makes me wonder, like, what do we need to do as creators to earn a slot in that top eight or top five or top three? So I guess I'm curious. You already mentioned that some creators who are listening to this might be like, oh, that's really demoralizing or intimidating. What's your any other kind of, like, initial impressions as you start to think about this these kind of constraints of podcasting and the physical time limitations?

Justin: 07:10

Yeah. I mean, on one hand, it is overwhelming because the bar is high. It's like, how could I, a lowly podcaster, get into that tier of being someone's, you know, one creator that they choose for that day. On the flip side, I think people will see there's advantages to that. So once you earn that spot, there are baked in advantages to podcasting that you don't get with other forms of content.

Justin: 07:37

So I think people will see both advantages, but this is a nice framing because it shows people this is the game they're playing.

Jeremy: 07:46

For me personally, I always wanna know, like, if I wanna see the mountain that I'm climbing and be like, okay. That's where I need to get to. Mhmm. And I can decide whether I wanna undertake that journey or not. But at least I have clarity on, like, I know what I'm doing.

Jeremy: 07:56

I know where I need to go. And I think that, you know, with some of these kind of constraints of podcasting and the opportunities, the more that we can understand the dynamics here, the better we can actually make intentional decisions about how we structure our episodes, what our show concept or premise is, and, like, all of these different things that we can then be intentional about how we approach that and and give ourselves the the best chance at success. Mhmm. And so we started off talking about time, which is a big part of this and how much time people have for podcast. This is kind of based on an assumption that podcast tend to be longer form, which is not universally true.

Jeremy: 08:26

But there's also it gets into this bigger conversation of kind of, like, platform dynamics or platform constraints. Mhmm. And so I'm curious, how would you kind of define that concept? There's constraints, there's platform dynamics, and there's also platform psychology or how people think about a certain platform. Like, how would you walk through this?

Jeremy: 08:44

Whether it's, like, software or podcasting or YouTube or an app or or something like that.

Justin: 08:50

Yeah. I mean, there there's, the platform constraints are what's baked in to this thing you've chosen. So as an example, TikTok, it's algorithmically driven. So the game you're playing there is how do I grab the attention of the algorithm? What gets me a spot in the algorithm that's being, you know, tested on people all over the world.

Justin: 09:15

And then once you get that spot, the disadvantage is most people don't follow the creator. It's a moment and then it passes and then that's it. If we go the other way, like thinking about books, right, like, what are the constraints of writing and publishing a book? Well, people maybe will read three or four books a year if you're lucky. And there's even something beyond that, which is interesting, which is, like, a lot of people buy books but don't read them.

Justin: 09:44

And is that good or bad or whatever? And, but what probably gets books sold is people actually recommending it. So it's everything that's in the medium of choice. And based on how it's built, what are the advantages and disadvantages? What are the strengths and weaknesses?

Justin: 10:01

What are the opportunities and threats? It's all encompassed in that.

Jeremy: 10:05

Yeah. And, you know, for each of those, it makes me even think there's further kind of platform constraints and dynamics here where with TikTok, there is a time limit. Like, your video can't just be an infinite amount of time. Twitter is was famous for the character limit. I mean, it still has a character limit, but it's that's becoming a little bit more lax.

Jeremy: 10:20

But, like, that was one of the things that actually helped it stand out. But it creates a limitation where that's, like, created threads basically where people were trying to get around this platform constraint and developed a new way of communicating on the platform. And you look at something like books then, you know, now we've got ebooks and everything like that. But historically, a platform constrained to books are the cost it it takes to print the book. And so a longer book is gonna cost more to get printed.

Jeremy: 10:43

There's I know a bunch of stuff. I don't know enough about the book world, but there is a certain size of book that is optimized for sales. A lot of publishers, they don't wanna have a book that's too short and so they will prompt others to bloat it because it looks better on the bookstore shelves. It takes up more space Yeah. And catches more eyes.

Jeremy: 11:00

And so there's all these kind of platform dynamics built in. Some of them help you and and are beneficial and present opportunities and other ones present challenges. But I think knowing kind of that system that you're operating within and how to navigate it, what the platform wants and then there's this other side of like the platform psychology which is, like, the expectations and almost assumptions that people bring to a platform. And so we can think people have a certain idea of what a podcast is.

Justin: 11:26

This is

Jeremy: 11:26

a big debate in podcasting right now. But they have a certain kind of set idea of what they go to a podcast in general to get and what they go to an email newsletter to get and what they're gonna get from YouTube or a book or anything else. And so I think when we understand these, we can start to kinda play with those a little bit.

Justin: 11:42

Yeah. In one sense, it's like characteristics of the platform. Like, there's constraints, but there's also the things that the platform enables that other platforms might not. And, yeah, I like the psychology part. Like, when someone opens up their podcast player, what's their kind of thinking?

Justin: 11:58

What's their process of deciding? And we could even go further back in that. Like, before they open their podcast player, what are the other options that, you know, they're like, do I feel like music today? It's like, no. No.

Justin: 12:09

No. I'm gonna I want something juicy for this commute to work. It's like, okay. So now you're looking for something juicy, whatever that means. And then it's like, what do I choose based on what happens when I open up my podcast player?

Justin: 12:23

And I think most creators are not thinking on that level. They're just assuming, well, people are coming to my show, and so I've gotta make, you know, my intro really solid. But it's like, no. No. No.

Justin: 12:36

You gotta start even two or three or four steps back thinking both about the platform itself and the psychology the listener is bringing. And then think through, like, how are you going to be a part of that flow?

Jeremy: 12:52

There's a really interesting example that came up in my Podcast Marketing Academy community last week where somebody was asking about email service provider platforms and was wondering about signing up on Substack. Mhmm. And was asking, like, you know, what do you think of what Substack? Is my business a good fit for this? And it was interesting that another member basically wrote some comment along the lines of, when I think of Substack, I think of long form think pieces.

Jeremy: 13:17

Like that feels like a Substack newsletter, not so much email marketing. And Yeah. It clicked for me. I was like, I I couldn't quite articulate. I was like, yes.

Jeremy: 13:25

There is a brand of newsletter that belongs on Substack that is different from any other kind of newsletter. And Yeah. That there is a platform psychology that people who read Substacks, I'm not even a regular Substack reader. I have that association with the platform and the people who are on it. Yeah.

Jeremy: 13:40

And so the you can get emails from everywhere and I get Substack newsletters delivered in my email client in Gmail or in Apple Mail or whatever. I read them right there, but it still feels different because it's from Substack somehow.

Justin: 13:51

Yeah.

Jeremy: 13:51

And so there's this, like, halo of the platform or the medium that can extend and causes people to have certain assumptions that can be, in this case, potentially good. But if you're gonna go against those assumptions, it might actually hurt you because people expect something from Substack or a newsletter on Substack. And if you're not delivering that, it might feel like you're breaking with the expectations in some way.

Justin: 14:11

Yeah. Yeah. I just got a email from De La Soul, the old school hip hop group, and it was sent through Substack. And I was just like, this doesn't feel right. This isn't, like, the right spot for this.

Justin: 14:24

But if they'd sent me, you know, an email through Patreon, I would have been like, oh, yeah. This feels fine.

Jeremy: 14:29

I think the last thing I wanna move on to some of the specific kind of podcasting. But the thing to emphasize here before we move on is that these kind of platform dynamics and platform psychology are not things we as creators can influence. They may over time change as either the platform changes as a whole Mhmm. Or that a large number of creators shift the meaning of what a podcast is. And so now as podcast is going to video and YouTube becoming more of a thing, there is a growing base of content consumers who has a different idea of what a podcast is than what it was ten years ago, but no one creator can actually shift that.

Jeremy: 15:05

And so we exist within these dynamics, and I think that's important important thing to kind of keep in mind.

Justin: 15:09

Yeah. I always say you can't change the market. Like, you think you can influence? No. No.

Justin: 15:14

The market is in motion, and you're just riding the wave. And I think podcasters need to recognize this is the kind of wave we're riding. These are the characteristics of it. We can't affect that. Like, the weather affects that.

Justin: 15:28

It's our job to say, how can I best ride this particular wave?

Jeremy: 15:33

So when you think about some of the kind of traits, characteristics that are baked into the medium of podcasting, what are some of the things that come to mind for you?

Justin: 15:40

I was gonna bring this up later, but I think I'll bring it up here because you had talked to me earlier about how it's a platform full of inertia. And I just think about, like, typically, a podcast consumer is making a decision, and then they're putting their phone away, and then their hands and eyes are busy, typically.

Jeremy: 16:02

Yeah.

Justin: 16:03

So it's like, I get in the car. I have a thirty minute commute. What am I gonna listen to? I'm opening up my podcast player in that moment. I'm scrolling through what looks interesting.

Justin: 16:16

I'm choosing. I'm putting the phone down. I'm backing up. I'm driving. My eyes and my hands are busy.

Justin: 16:24

And it's not like other platforms where it's like, oh, here's one. Here's one. Here's one. Like, you're just switching between videos. Podcasting is a very different medium in that sense, and I think inertia is a good way to describe it.

Jeremy: 16:39

And I think, like, when I was thinking of words, I often think about friction. But then I realized, like, inertia is actually a better word for a couple reasons. Like, I think friction is always a negative force. And so one of the things I really think about that is baked into podcasting is there's both entry and exit friction. So it's really hard to get somebody to click play on an episode for the first time because it is a big time commitment and because they might already have their three shows they love.

Jeremy: 17:02

And so they might, you know, like me, subscribe to show as and never listen to them. It's like buying that book and you don't actually listen. So there is friction getting somebody to get into it. There's the entry friction also exists in how do you promote it. And so if you're promoting through social media, people are in one kind of mindset that is not listen to a forty five or sixty minute long interview.

Jeremy: 17:21

Yeah. They might subscribe now. They might go click over to it, but they also might not. They might just scroll on to the next post. They might be aware of it.

Jeremy: 17:27

But so getting people in is really hard for podcasting, but also getting people out. And so a lot of times people are looking to use their shows to grow their businesses or their email list or something else or even we all know getting people to rate and review and subscribe to the show. Mhmm. Like, getting people to do that is really hard, again because their eyes and hands are busy. And so those are kind of the negative aspects.

Jeremy: 17:48

That's where I was thinking about friction where it's like, if people are not already in motion with the show, they're not already regular listeners. It's hard to get them to do that. But there's also this other aspect of inertia, which is when they are a regular listener, they just build a habit around it and they keep doing it. And it often comes to own a certain spot in their day or a certain time period where you're in the car. You've made that one decision, and now it's too hard for them to, like, go and find something else if they're not into it after the first five or ten minutes.

Jeremy: 18:13

Yeah. And so it can be both positive and challenging, and I think there's ways to kinda play with that.

Justin: 18:18

Yeah. And, really, like, most people opening up their podcast player, in their queue, if they're following a bunch of shows, maybe there's 20 episodes there. And you might think, wow, like that sucks. Yep. Because I have to be one of 20.

Justin: 18:34

But on the other hand, it's like one of 20 is pretty good odds in a long form content universe. TikTok is like your thing has to stand out amongst a thousand things. Like and they're not not gonna be spending that much time with you. Whereas here, yes, the initial friction or that threshold to overcome is greater. But once they commit, now you've got their attention.

Justin: 19:02

You've got that listening time for a long time. And that is just such a great gift and opportunity. And it's really, I think, what makes podcasting so special is, man, it's hard to get a listener. But if you get the listener and if they're engaged, you've got something special there, which makes it more likely to for them to build a habit and for you to become one of their, you know, eight creators, podcast creators that they, listen to in a given week. That is just an incredible opportunity.

Justin: 19:39

And statistically, those odds are actually pretty good. There's maybe, I don't know, a 50,000, two hundred thousand podcasts that are actively still releasing new episodes in the last thirty days or something. That's not that many. The competitive pool is actually pretty small compared to most media types, YouTube channels Yeah. Books, TV shows.

Justin: 20:05

We're actually in a fairly small pond, and there's some advantages to that.

Jeremy: 20:11

I'm talking about this idea of getting people's kind of this lock in idea where it's like once you find a show that you like, you spend a lot of time with it. There's a decent amount of data on, like, the podcast advertising side of things, which is that podcast listeners are it's a highly valuable audience to reach. Mhmm. This is also true if you own a business. I don't have nearly enough data and it's so hard to find because it's all anecdotal.

Jeremy: 20:32

But I've seen a lot of people share figures that are basically, their podcast listeners convert to their products or services anywhere from two to eight times the rate of their just social or email, subscribers. And so I think, like, that's a really interesting thing too where, yeah, maybe you have a way smaller podcast audience, but the value is actually much more. And so I think that this is something that is baked into the dynamic of podcasting as well is that it's actually quite a high trust medium. If we think about how much trust do you put in a TikTok content creator who you might have watched a hundred or 500 or a thousand TikToks of Mhmm. I don't think there's that much trust in that person.

Jeremy: 21:10

Mhmm. But I think if you listen to 50 or a hundred episodes of a podcast host, even, like, let's say, a thirty to forty five minute episode, not, like, super super long, I think you trust that person way more than a creator on creator on another platform.

Justin: 21:22

Yeah. And you see this show up in the way that people recommend different formats. So I might repost an Instagram photo to my story because it's a cool photo. But Mhmm. I'm not saying, hey.

Justin: 21:37

You should go and follow this creator or this person. I'm just like, look at this little piece of content. What a cool piece of content. Whereas when people recommend podcasts, they're usually recommending the host or the creator. They're saying, Hey, I really like, respect this person.

Justin: 21:54

Like they, they just have a lot of insights and wisdom. So they're recommending the host or the creator more times than not. It's a very different modality there.

Jeremy: 22:09

And I hope that this becomes more of a thing. One thing we've talked about in our podcast a lot is the idea of having a kind of compelling show concept.

Justin: 22:16

Mhmm.

Jeremy: 22:16

I think if you have a great concept, that becomes much more recommendable. Now you can recommend both the host and the concept and in any individual episode. But I think a lot of times, like, there is this, like, feeling like, oh, I know so and so needs to hear from this person or, like, I I want to recommend this person's perspective to a certain person.

Justin: 22:34

As a case study, this show that I just started, there's some people that are gonna come to the show because Brian, who's the cohost, and myself have built an audience, But we've married that with this concept, which is we're bringing two people on every episode that we purposefully are hoping disagree with our takes, that we're going to be teasing apart the nuance on any topic that we cover. And so that's kind of this idea of marrying, like, here's the host, here's the creator, and you might be coming for the creator. Yeah. But then let's marry that with a concept that is compelling. Like, it just creates this kind of momentum, this pull to the show.

Jeremy: 23:18

A couple other of the kind of, baked in platform dynamics of podcasting, we would be kind of remiss not to mention RSS. We don't need to go into why that necessarily matters. There's lots of places to find that outside of this show, but that is a inherent kind of like technically baked in aspect of podcasting that is shifting as Spotify is trying to do things their way. YouTube's trying to kind of bring things in in house there, but this is still a core part of podcasting that has all kinds of interesting knock on effects where Yeah. You know, you can transfer your show from one hosting platform to another and retain ownership of your episodes.

Jeremy: 23:50

You can kind of redirect that pretty easily. You cannot be shut down on any one platform. Like, if you're on YouTube or your Instagram account gets blocked and then good luck finding your way through Facebook support. Mhmm. That's, not a fun thing from what I've heard from anybody who's gone through that.

Jeremy: 24:04

Mhmm. And so RSS is certainly kind of one of the platform dynamics. And then actually going back to what we were talking about with the, like, show concept side of things. One of the things that I feel strongly about with podcasting as it currently stands is that there is this dynamic that the show actually has a lot of emphasis and I don't think people think about that. I think historically, people thought about podcasting as a convenient way to distribute content like a blog post kind of.

Jeremy: 24:29

And this is if we go back ten, fifteen years. But I think as podcasting has evolved, people actually need to be thinking about what is the premise of the show, what is the concept at the show level. Mhmm. And that that is a huge part of what gets somebody to subscribe to a show and click play. And so again, you can have like a host be part of the magnetism or the thing that attracts you to a show.

Jeremy: 24:48

You could certainly have episodes, but if you have those two things, plus you have a interesting show concept that people are like, woah, that's an interesting way to explore this topic. Mhmm. Then you've got all a lot of magnetism pulling people in. And so I think that's something Yeah. Not enough people are approaching their shows thinking about, like, what is the concept here?

Jeremy: 25:05

What is the premise beyond just a collection of episodes on a certain topic?

Justin: 25:09

Yeah. And, again, if you're thinking about this exchange, instead of spending money, a listener is really spending a lot of time. And so the bar has to be higher because they are going to push play and start driving for thirty minutes. This is a commitment. And if you let them down, if they're, like, halfway through that commute and they're like, ah, like, I wish I hadn't chosen this episode and but I'm locked in.

Justin: 25:36

Like, I can't really fiddle with my phone and, like, figure out something else. Then, you know, you've lost their trust. So Yeah. The bar has to be higher for podcasts because of the way people are engaging with it.

Jeremy: 25:48

And I think that actually maybe brings us to this next kind of point here. We talked about some of the baked in platform dynamics, but then there's also the kind of platform psychology. And what does a, in this case, listener expect of podcasting? And I'm curious, like, what if you think about the medium as a whole, you've got all these content platforms that you engage with. Like, what do you go to podcasting for or expect when you hear that a creator that you already know and follow is launching a podcast?

Jeremy: 26:13

Like, how is that different from them launching a YouTube channel or, you know, a TikTok or something like that?

Justin: 26:17

Yeah. Oh, that's a great question. Really, it feels like, to me, I'm about to consider entering into a more serious relationship with that person. So if I've been, like, casually seeing them post clips or, you know, maybe I read their newsletter every once in a while, if they're asking me to follow their podcast feed, it's like, woah. Like, this is this is getting serious.

Justin: 26:48

Like, I'm this could be a long term relationship here. Mhmm. And the podcast creators that have been significant to me, those were long term relationships, parasocial relationships that I've had for, in some cases, ten, fifteen years.

Jeremy: 27:08

Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I don't know that I had considered this before until you said that, but there are many forms of content that I will watch a one off video and that's fine. I will read one blog post from somebody and blog posts are very shareable. They get LinkedIn newsletters.

Jeremy: 27:22

They get linked on social, whatever. It's easy to click in and click out. But I feel like if I'm approaching a podcast, I want to sign up for a journey. And I think I want it to be a companion long term. That's actually something I'm looking for.

Justin: 27:33

Yeah.

Jeremy: 27:33

I'm not looking for a one off. And so there is something baked into the expectations of a podcast that you're kind of along for a bigger thing than just one episode here or there. Yeah.

Justin: 27:42

There. Yeah. I love the way you just put that. I'm, like, I don't think that's the only job to be done or the only kinda mode, but it is a big one. I'm signing up for a journey, like, to go on a journey with this person.

Justin: 27:55

There's a type of show that just fits perfectly. And, again, the bar is higher for that.

Jeremy: 28:04

Well and, you know, the other thing that is different with podcasting from most other platforms is, again, it comes back to this book idea where you will buy a book but not read it immediately, but you know you will read it one day. And I think podcasting is like that too where I have many shows where I feel like I am going to listen to this and I know I'm gonna love it. It actually also makes me think of a long form like, television series where I watched season one of Breaking Bad back in the day. And I I binged it all in, like, three days. And I was like, woah.

Jeremy: 28:30

That was intense. I can't do this to myself again. I gotta just, like, slow down a little bit, put the brakes on. I'll come back to this. And so I am bought in.

Jeremy: 28:37

I know how good the show is and even better that I know that it pays off in the end because of, you know, you just live in culture and you know that. And so for me, I'm like, I'm saving that for some time in the future. I get to look forward to that for a long time. I'm not ready to go on that journey yet, but I know it's there when I need it. And so I think podcasting is unique in that way too, where I can't think of a single newsletter that I've ever said, you know, I'm going to bookmark this and I'm going to come back to that in the future.

Jeremy: 29:02

No, if I want the information, I'll sign up now or YouTube videos. It's like I have a watch later cute, but it's not like whole channels that I'm just like, I'm just gonna subscribe and tuck this away over here for when the time's right.

Justin: 29:13

Yeah.

Jeremy: 29:13

It's much more impulsive, I think. Whereas podcasting, I think, as a whole is much more measured almost in the way people make decisions about shows.

Justin: 29:20

Yeah. And you just mentioned whole channel. I think that's key too. It's like podcasting. You're really committing to getting this drip every time.

Justin: 29:30

It's like a new thing is coming into your queue every week. And if you're gonna be a committed listener, you're signing up for the channel experience, like the whole thing. Whereas some of these other formats, like a YouTube channel, it's like, I can just go in, see how to fix my engine, and then get out. You know? It's like, I'm not gonna sign up for that guy's engine repair channel.

Justin: 29:56

Some YouTube channels have this characteristic, but this is definitely a thing in podcasting. It's like you're signing up for the whole thing.

Jeremy: 30:03

There's two things that are interesting about YouTube that you mentioned there. So one that I think of is Casey Neistat. He his channel so he he's a different generation of YouTuber than what is more kind of prominent now. His channel probably wouldn't, like, gain traction today. Mhmm.

Jeremy: 30:18

But, obviously, he kinda, like, revolutionized the daily vlog. That is a channel where you do you would not there's no point to watch one Casey Neistat video. Mhmm. Like, the content I was listening to another podcast. I think it was on the The Nathan Barry Show, and they were talking about Casey Neistat at how great a filmmaker he is.

Jeremy: 30:32

And basically whoever the guest was, was saying like the content of a Casey Neistat video is shockingly banal. Like it's like him going to the airport and whatever, but he's such a good storyteller with the camera that it pulls you in. But it's like you are going on a journey with that channel to get to know Casey in some sense and feel all along for the ride. But with podcasting, I think that's almost more of the norm of you expect that a little bit. It's much more personal, I think.

Jeremy: 30:56

And, I feel like there's almost this more immersive element too that makes me think a little bit of books versus movies. Again, we keep going back to books where you build that world in your head because there's not the visual and there's not the voices. Whereas with podcasting, I can't help but think that there's something going on in your brain as well where you are actually being required to do a bit of work. Mhmm. And that you're hearing this conversation, but your brain is filling in some gaps and imagining some of the visuals or kind of wandering a little bit, and it's not just in autopilot mode.

Jeremy: 31:24

And I think that that's something else that's really interesting with podcasting. And then the other thing that you mentioned with YouTube, you mentioned, like, how to fix my engine. I think I, as a consumer of podcasts, actually do not think of podcasting as a actionable medium. Mhmm. A actionable medium.

Jeremy: 31:37

Mhmm.

Justin: 31:37

I

Jeremy: 31:38

think of it as as the place to go for a more nuanced in-depth kind of explorations of topics. And I think that this is something that's at odds with how a lot of people approach shows because we roast and I audit so many shows that in their description say, like, highly actionable strategies. Mhmm.

Justin: 31:54

And I

Jeremy: 31:54

think some shows can pull that off, but I think that other platforms are always gonna be way more actionable, way more shorter form than podcasting is gonna be. And so I don't always know that leaning to actionable is the best strategy in podcasting.

Justin: 32:07

Yeah. This is making me think of other formats. So if if we identified one, which is I'm signing up to go on a journey with this creator, there there's the flip side of that too, which is I, the listener, am on a journey, and I'm signing up for you to be my companion as I go through this journey. I think this applies to maybe Jay Klaus and his creator science show. So I am somebody who wants to be a full time creator, and I need a companion on this journey who will probably give me some actionable content, but it's at a different level.

Justin: 32:41

It it's very much like Jay is the friend I go and meet at the coffee shop, and we talk about business and talk about my journey, and he recommends a few things. That's the kind of relationship I see there. Jay could have another show, and he does have this subcontext, which is some people might be signing up just to hear about his journey. Mhmm. I'm just, like, interested in hearing how his story arc, you know, goes.

Justin: 33:07

So I think that's Yep. There too. And then there's other formats as well, like, Tyler Cowen, Conversations with Tyler. I'm subscribed to his feed. I'm not gonna listen to every episode, but every once in a while, something big happens or there's a person that I really wanna hear him.

Justin: 33:25

I'm basically signing up to hear somebody confront people or ask really good questions around a topic that are, you know, incredibly, like, sharp. And I just, like, I need to hear that sharp, more confrontational questioning. Like, no formality is, like, let's just hear the deep stuff. So, yeah, there's a few of these formats that are interesting in podcasting that are different certainly than YouTube or TikTok.

Jeremy: 33:54

So there's two more things that I think are really interesting that are worth pointing out in terms of the listener psychology with podcasting. The first is this idea of, like, podcasting as a platform that can help with your sales. A lot of people launch shows to support their businesses. I think a lot of people that that we both talk to, certainly the majority of the people that I work with. And I think a lot of people struggle with this in that they're like, I get great feedback from listeners.

Jeremy: 34:18

Like, people love the show, but I can't get anybody to book a sales call or to sign up to my course or whatever it might be. And I think that this is a distinction in platform psychology between podcasting and email specifically, where I know I have signed up to probably dozens of mailing lists. I have like clothing companies and tech companies and, online course creators and things like that where I'm like, I have no intention of buying now. I don't actually wanna read your regular email, but I do wanna keep getting it so that I can remind myself that, like, when the time is right, I'm gonna buy that thing. A sale comes around Mhmm.

Jeremy: 34:46

Or the timing is right in my life to sign up for that course or whatever it is, and I wanna be reminded to get it. And so I've actually subscribed to be sold to where I think all of us have those things in in email where we actually choose to be marketed to actively. But with podcasting, I don't think anybody goes to a podcast expecting to buy something from it. And so I think that this is something, if you are a business owner, it's worth kind of keeping this in mind that, like, podcasting is great for some things. Again, there's that friction in getting people to take action.

Jeremy: 35:12

Part of that is the platform psychology. Part of that is just the, platform constraints where people are hands are busy, eyes are busy. They can't just go click a sales page link. So that's the the kind of one thing that I I think is worth considering here as we're talking about this platform psychology. And then the last thing here when it comes to the listener psychology and platform psychology of podcasting is I think that there's an assumption on behalf of listeners, certainly on my part, that if I go looking for a podcast, I'm actually expecting to spend some time.

Jeremy: 35:41

And so you do see a lot of podcasts that are, you know, five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes. They're shorter form podcasts. And I think that it certainly makes it easier to overcome that friction and get in. But I think there's also, on a lot of people's part, like, they are coming to go deep on a topic, and so a lot of people are always asking how long should my episodes be, and they're kind of worried about going too long. And, yeah, I think the longer your show, the higher the bar it is to get somebody into the show in the first place.

Jeremy: 36:06

But I think depending on the rest of your concept and how you're framing the topic, there are people who are actually coming to the medium to get a deeper take on a topic than, you know, they might get elsewhere. And so that's something that you can actually kind of align with if that feels, you know, right for your your content.

Justin: 36:21

Yeah. I totally agree. So understanding all these kind of baked in dynamics, how do we create better shows that people want to follow? How do we get into that, you know, being one of the eight creators that they're following in a given week? What can we do about that?

Jeremy: 36:37

Yeah. I mean, I think the first thing is just actually getting your mindset around that. And so, you know, you mentioned the queue that you maybe have 20 episodes in. I just looked up mine. I've got a hundred and nine episodes in my to listen queue.

Jeremy: 36:48

Mhmm. And I think the interesting thing here, both at the show level and the episode level, is I will never listen probably to most of those episodes. I will probably listen to maybe the top five in the queue. And it's always like something new is coming out that jumps to the top, bumps everything down.

Justin: 37:01

Mhmm.

Jeremy: 37:01

And so I think that that's something that is worth thinking about is that if you're in that position in at the top of the queue or if you're in the the top of somebody's feed, you have a built in advantage that you're probably gonna keep that. But it's also looking at, like, as a challenge to us as creators, we have to assume that people who aren't listening to us right now already have those top three, those top eight shows in their feed. And so what are we gonna do? It actually needs to be pretty sharp and specific, our pitch to people, like, what they're gonna get that is not already being delivered to them by other shows, either on our topic or on all the other topics that they listen to. And so I think the first thing is just, like, getting in our heads, this is the challenge that we're up against.

Justin: 37:39

And to be like, here's a good example practically for me. There's a few shows that they're mostly co hosted shows. And Mhmm. If that episode pops into the top of my queue, I'm abandoning whatever else I'm listening to. I'm listening to that show.

Justin: 37:55

There's some topical episodes like Pod News, Weekly is a show I subscribe to. I I don't listen to every episode, but if the headline for the show, the title for the episode is something I'm like, oh, I gotta listen to that right now. That will push everything else down. That goes to the top of the list. So there's different mindsets.

Justin: 38:16

And what you're just trying to do is so for Pod News, for example, you're basically just trying to deliver the headlines and then understanding that some of those headlines are gonna grab certain listeners more than others, and that's the job to be done. Deliver the headlines, and if it resonates, people will listen. Maybe a co hosted show where a lot of it is about, you know, your relationship with the host, and then just like, this is I gotta spend time with these two people. That's a very different, modality, and that can also work. You can construct your show along those lines.

Justin: 38:51

So show construction, and you talk about this a lot, you know, the concept of the show, the hosts themselves, what is going to get keep people coming back? And maybe they're not coming back for every episode. You know, Professor g, Scott Galloway, he publishes four or five episodes a week. Most people aren't listening to every episode. Right?

Justin: 39:11

But he wants the average episode to get x number of downloads. That's his target. And you can construct shows assuming that people won't listen every time.

Jeremy: 39:22

The thing that comes to mind for me when designing for kind of the existing dynamics in podcasting and on the platform is understanding, like, where the challenges are, what the hard things are about podcasting, and then really putting a lot of attention into those things. And so the reason that we have this other show, Roast My Podcast, is because so much of the decision to listen to a show is based on this very limited amount of data that somebody gets. It's the title of the show, it's the cover art. Those are really the first kind of filters. And then you get, okay, the description and the episode titles.

Jeremy: 39:53

Like almost none of the decision to listen has anything to do with any content, no recorded audio. It's all this visual stuff that people can scan and consume in a few seconds. Mhmm. And so I think understanding that this is the real challenge to getting people into the show and that once we get them in, actually, we have a good chance of keeping them if the content is good. Like, I wanna focus a ton of of time and effort and energy and even money on getting a great piece of cover art, on really making sure my title is communicating the promise or the job to be done of the show, getting the description to be able to hook the people in, kind of communicate the relevance of the show to them, and then thinking about those episode titles.

Jeremy: 40:29

I'm the same way where there's some shows, I've got my queue, but if an episode title, I'm like, oh, that is too specific. It's too relevant. It's timely. It's juicy. It's whatever it is.

Jeremy: 40:38

That one is now jumping to the top of my queue and bumping everything else down.

Justin: 40:42

And so

Jeremy: 40:42

I think that, you know, just because you have subscribers, we still have to win people over each and every week. And part of that's with the episode titles, which is, of course, based on our, like, topic selection and guest selection, things like that. How we're framing the episodes in the first place. But what are the baked in challenges with podcasting? And let me dedicate a lot of my focus towards overcoming those things.

Jeremy: 41:01

Another thing on the content side of the actual content within the episodes that comes to mind for me is thinking about the habitual nature of podcast. I think that almost more than any other medium, podcasting is very habit driven where you will have a show that you listen to every Tuesday as soon as it comes out. And you might actually, you know, plan your day around that to some extent. You know, on Tuesday morning in my walk into work, maybe I take the long way to work so that I can fit in this hour long podcast versus the thirty minute direct walk there. But because it's Tuesday, I'm gonna enjoy Money for Couples with Ramit Sethi has been one of mine where I will build time into my day to extend my walk so that I can listen to that show because it has that place in my week.

Jeremy: 41:38

And I think the way to get there, to get to this habit building, kind of experience with the show is it actually has to be repetitive in some way. There has to be a consistent structure. The length has to be generally similar. And there also has to be a very consistent experience that a listener gets. And so they need to have basically a % confidence every time they click play that they already know what they're going to get emotionally.

Jeremy: 42:01

They might not know what information they're going to get. They might not know what the story is going to be. They might not know what jokes are going to make them laugh, but they know that experience, that listening experience. And it's as something that is really, really consistent. And I think that this is something where, again, it goes back to this idea where a lot of times podcasts feel like a repository of a bunch of different types of episodes that are just hard to associate in your mind.

Jeremy: 42:21

What do I go to this show to get? And so I think thinking about consistency, not only in release schedule, but also in listener experience is a huge kind of part of building that habit.

Justin: 42:32

Yeah. And I wanna zoom in. You just put it so perfectly. What am I gonna get from this show emotionally? Like Mhmm.

Justin: 42:39

So people have emotional associations with shows. Another thing I wanted my new show to feel like was that feeling when you're at a conference and you, like, go to a bar with a bunch of people, and you're just shooting the shit. You're just, like, talking about the real life trying to do this thing. And that's the feeling I wanted people to have when they listen. Like, having that

Jeremy: 43:05

Mhmm.

Justin: 43:05

That emotional resonance. And I think understanding that a lot of shows do this job for people. Emotionally, they're getting something. You know, there's certain people that after a big political event or a big world event, I'm just, like, waiting for them to release their episode. And the emotional thing I'm looking for is just, like, I need somebody to help me process this emotionally.

Justin: 43:30

Mhmm. So I'm just waiting for that voice that's going to calm me down, that's going to, like, walk through everything and really deconstruct it. And that's an emotional experience. They might think of it as, like, intellectual. No.

Justin: 43:44

I'm intellectually going through all this stuff. No. No. No. Your listener has an emotional experience to what you're doing.

Justin: 43:51

And understanding that is gonna help you connect better with the listener and hopefully because the way you put it, it was like, they might not be able to articulate it, but they're feeling what that show represents for them. So when it pops up in their feed, they're like, oh, yeah. It's time for that feeling.

Jeremy: 44:11

Yeah. And I think, you know, on that front, like we were talking about before where there's these multiple kind of sources of magnetism for a show from the concept to the host to an episode, I think that that's similar with a show that is inherently intellectual. You can have a show that's purely intellectual, but if you also pair that with an emotional experience Mhmm. That's another deeper level of hook that keeps people coming back. And so they come their brain their rational brain is, like, yeah, I come to the show to learn about this.

Jeremy: 44:36

But there's also this other pull that they probably aren't even aware of that pulls them into that show because the show makes them feel a certain way without them realizing it. And so I think Yeah. You know, you can have one or the other. But if you have both, that's something that's really helpful.

Justin: 44:48

Be a great thing to add to a listener survey that I've never actually seen anyone do, but have a question around what emotions do you attach to our show and see, how people feel about your show subconsciously.

Jeremy: 45:04

I'm gonna add that to my, template. So as we're kinda wrapping up this episode here, I'm curious if you have a show or several shows in mind that you think are just truly great podcasts, that these shows make great use of podcasting as a medium.

Justin: 45:19

Yeah. I'll I'll call out I've mentioned the show before, but Notes on Work by Caleb Porzio is, I think, the best solo podcast I've ever listened to. He does it in one take, and it just feels magical to me that he has this gift of articulating himself in this way. I only listen to about half the episodes because he's a programmer, and sometimes he'll talk about programming stuff that I'm actually not that interested in. I'm more interested in his thoughts on life and work and the brilliance of the show when he's experiencing something, and it would be something that he would normally maybe tweet or write a blog post on.

Justin: 46:00

Instead, he hits record, and he just processes it out loud ten, fifteen, thirty minutes. And I just find it so refreshing. Emotionally, it does this job, which I actually I I go to podcasts a lot for this, which is articulate part of your human experience that is normally hidden, but that you are bringing out in a way that I can connect with, I can identify with. I can go, oh, here's another human on this journey with me wrestling with this stuff the same way I am, and they even have some ideas on how they deal with it. I also have joked that it's like, it's I'm not religious anymore, but it's like going to church.

Justin: 46:46

It's like Sunday morning walk, listen to this. It's like it feels like that to me. Like, ah, I'm gonna get this kinda life human connection moment, and there's something very emotionally resonant about it for me.

Jeremy: 47:04

I got a handful here that I listened to. These are many of the ones that are on my you know, certainly listening in the last month, if not the last week. I I almost feel bad, Jaren, because I talk about it so much, is three books. I think this is just one of the most brilliant audio only or primarily audio shows that's out there. I think there's a great concept to it where it's an expert interview show and Neil, the host, kind of interviews the world's most interesting people.

Jeremy: 47:27

And so you can hear that it sounds a lot like Tim Ferriss almost, like the world's top performing people and dozens of other shows. But he has this unique device where he explores these guest stories and their experiences through their three most formative books. And so it's just such a unique frame to bring to a show, a different way of interviewing the same people who show up elsewhere. The other thing I like is he's got a whole manifesto on his site about their approach to books and to reading and to the audience. It is so clear that Neil has put so much thought into every touch point of the show and made such intentional creative decisions with how he structures the show and how he talks about the show and the brand that he's building.

Jeremy: 48:05

I think that that is just an exceptional use of the podcast medium and, is one of my favorite shows as well.

Justin: 48:10

Mhmm. Just a sidebar, I think that framing of a show, you could if you have an opinion so my take on that would be, instead of books, what three interactions or what three connections, were most meaningful in your life. That's just a great framing for a show, but you can see it comes out of something I feel strongly about. And then you can have this whole new take that no one else has had for, you know, the boring interview format. So, yeah, I love that.

Jeremy: 48:39

A couple honorable mentions from me. I've got, some shows on here. Ologies, one of the biggest shows in the world. Again, a wonderful concept behind that show. Good One, which is a podcast about joke writing and comedians, they come on, they play,

Justin: 48:51

and they talk about I've been I've I've been listening on your recommendation, and it's so good.

Jeremy: 48:56

And then, Money for Couples, I've mentioned that one a lot too from Ramit Sethi and, Jay Klaus' Creator Science and David Perell's How I Write. Those are are some of the shows that I think are the best use of the podcast platform. And one interesting thing on those last three in particular, how I write creative science money for couples, I actually think they were better podcasts when they were audio only.

Justin: 49:15

And I

Jeremy: 49:15

think they've all made a shift to embracing YouTube, which I think is good for the brands of all of them. And I think is actually a little bit hurt the podcast listener experience. Not like five to 10%. Not a huge amount. Not enough for me to, like, really stop listening entirely, but I wanna call out that dynamic because it it does exist.

Jeremy: 49:32

Mhmm. What about you? Any honorable mentions?

Justin: 49:35

I I really like what Acquired is doing. I think that's super smart. I've been a long time listener of Making Sense by Sam Harris. Mostly Technical is that kind of buddy comedy, show where there's two cohosts and they just do a great job of having good takes on everything every week. So those are some of them for me.

Justin: 49:56

Like I said, I'm I'm probably listening to at least ten, twelve different shows a week.

Jeremy: 50:03

So if you're interested in checking out the full 2024 podcast marketing trends report, you can find that at podcastmarketingtrends.com for the data, the kind of limited data we pulled from the report in this episode, and much, much more. And we'll see you next episode.