Whether Attracting New Members, Engaging Current Ones or Amplifying Voices, Podcasts Mean Business

by COVID 19Media

“Authenticity is in great demand, especially now when people are craving straight talk and a break from their Zoom meetings. A podcast is like delivering a personalized TED Talk or conversation straight to someone’s earbuds and can help you become a voice of experience that literally speaks to your customers. Are you ready to be that voice?”
—Elizabeth Shea writing in Forbes

Podcasts mean business. They attract new members, engage current ones, bring sponsorships, convey thought leadership, amplify diverse voices, give your own staff more exposure, and may even win you an EXCEL Award!

(After all, it is awards season. Golden Globe and SAG nominations came out this week, and the early-bird deadline for EXCEL Award nominations is next Friday! Nominate here today! You worked hard in 2020! Get recognized for it by your peers.)

The National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies checks a few of those above boxes. They won a 2020 EXCEL Award for their Insurance Uncovered Podcast, and, in their latest episode, Charles Chamness, president and CEO, interviews Rep. Julia Brownley (D-CA) about what to expect from the new administration. Catherine Imus, their VP of public affairs, is the very able host for the podcast.

And you can become pretty good pretty fast. Chitra Sethi, executive editor, media, for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, attended an excellent session at the 2018 AM&P conference on podcasts by Blake Althen of Human Factor. She then helped to create ASME TechCast and presented on her 12-episode experience at the 2019 AM&P Conference. Now they’re a 2020 Gold EXCEL Award winner—for Engineering the Apollo 11 Lunar Module, spotlighting the engineers who made the 1969 moon landing happen.

One reason podcasts continued to thrive in 2020 is that interviews were often done by phone and computer before the pandemic. So there wasn’t much need for transition. Some thought the lack of commuting would hurt audience, but listening during other activities—exercising, house chores, car rides, weekend errands—made up for it. Almost 70% of people who listen to podcasts do so on their mobile phones.

In a recent Sidebar survey, only 50% of the respondents said that their association is doing a podcast. Could it be right for your association this year? (Or if you have one, could you add another?) Here are some questions to help your answer:

What are your goals? Do you have data on what audience you are trying to reach? Are you trying to demonstrate thought leadership in your field or industry? Do you want to promote other money-making activities you do? Do you want to give sponsors another avenue to use, especially with in-person events on hiatus? These may also determine the type of guests and format you have. “We had to ask ourselves, ‘What is our mission? Why do we want to do this?'” said Sethi. They also created an attractive logo and chose a segmented format over solo and interview “And what’s in a name?” she asked. “Everything. It took us weeks to pick a name. We had Geek Speak and Mechanically Speaking. Once we picked ASME TechCast we had our designer create the logo. We launched with a pilot episode on diversity in the industry” featuring an interview with a woman engineer.

Do you have time? “You might feel compelled to cut corners and take the webcasts or videos you’ve already posted on your YouTube channels and turn them into audio broadcasts, but that doesn’t gain you as much value…” Shea said. “If you’re going to do a podcast, do a podcast.” Also never underestimate the time editing may take, the need for pre-interviews with guests, and just the extra time overall. This might also affect the length you choose. ASME realized after recording a few episodes that a long podcast was not in their cards—or 8-hour workday. “We did like a 45-minute interview that we had to cut down to 12 minutes,” Sethi said. “We did not have the time for that going forward so decided to try to keep the recordings short.” Now the podcasts average about 10-12 minutes with this winning one just a quote or two over 10 minutes.

Are sponsorships out there?Monetizing podcasts might not be as important for associations as it is for B2B publishers, but that could change if event sponsorships continue to be slow. However, Shea says monetization might not be easy, so it might be better to go into podcasts with the idea of raising “your thought leadership profile,” and perhaps sponsors could join later. Given the rise of digital currencies and the role they play in offshore gambling platforms, partnering with brands offering the best crypto wallet could be a strategic move. These wallets are crucial for users engaging with these platforms, making them a relevant topic for discussion in your content. But you know your niche best. Are you getting webinars sponsored? Is there perhaps a vendor hole from the lack of in-person events that a podcast could fill?

Could you use more audience engagement? When COVID-19 began, MedLearn Media invited more healthcare professionals to their Monitor Mondays podcast to share and tell their stories of what they have been experiencing and seeing each week, said executive director Angela Kornegor. “The response on the new format was astonishing. Our live attendance to our podcasts increased by 50% which not only gave us great insight and feedback into what our customers were looking for and craving, but gave us intel on topics we could produce webcast topics around.”

What format is best? Deep dives seem to be the format of the moment now, averaging about 25 minutes. But a little less time-intensive would be a free-for-all—almost all discussion with little narrative and editing. Or something short like Spidell’s under-five-minutes California Minute. “Podcasting is not for direct response or lead gen,” wrote Mitch Joel in Six Pixels of Separation. “It’s about social proof and showing competence in the market.”

Who will be your host? I’ve heard shows with all combinations of hosts, and they do set the tone for the content to come. Maybe you have someone or two on staff who would be good—more female and diverse voices are definitely needed!—and the added exposure would benefit them. Do you know a good storyteller on staff, someone who shines on Zoom?

Does your sourcing need more diversity? Do people already come to mind as guests? Perhaps you can address a lack of diversity in your coverage. Source a podcast very much like you’d source a magazine or digital feature story. Who can speak eloquently and who represents the issue best? Look for new voices.

Lastly, do you like to have fun, Shea asks? “One of our clients who runs a successful podcast once remarked that it’s the hardest thing she’s ever done, but she also said it’s the most fun.” The importance of fun cannot be lessened these days. We’re working more hours, the holidays are over, it’s winter—whatever we add should have at least a tinge of fun attached.

A Trend to Watch: HubSpot Acquires The Hustle

by Media

by Alex Ford

HubSpot announced this week that they are acquiring The Hustle for what Axios has reported to be $27 million. The Hustle is a 1.5 million reader strong e-newsletter business targeting entrepreneurs and business owners. In commenting on the acquisition, HubSpot highlighted the overlap between The Hustle’s readership and parallels with the resources and audience that HubSpot has been building on its blog as well as the overall fit with its customer base.

Anyone who has considered HubSpot is likely well aware of the amount of best practice content they offer their customers and prospects. Adding an engaged audience of potential HubSpot customers and a distribution channel for that content makes tactical sense.

So why does this matter beyond what seems like a smart – albeit expensive – marketing play? I’ve long been a proponent of pairing Software as a Service (SaaS) businesses with content. And it’s a trend to watch as SaaS businesses become more sophisticated in their customer acquisition and deepen their value proposition beyond simply offering a software toolset.

Combining SaaS and content means including content as an essential part of a software product or by adding digital media communities or conferences to the front end of a SaaS business model. It was a major factor in the acquisition of the company I founded – Praetorian Digital – and its merger with Lexipol in the public safety learning and compliance space. In this case, The Hustle offers HubSpot content, a conference footprint and a fledging subscription data product.

For SaaS Businesses

If you follow SaaS businesses or have operated one, you know that the beauty of a SaaS business is in its clear metrics such as such as LTV/CAC (ratio of lifetime customer value to customer acquisition cost), payback period, and net churn that supports rapid scaling. Done right, adding digital media decreases CAC by creating an ongoing channel to a captured audience to which you can market your solution and builds brand authority and thought leadership. It provides a warm list for your lead or sales development reps to call and allows you to map lead capture to relevant articles even gating content that closely correlates with purchase intent.

More importantly, it also allows you to map content to all stages of the customer lifecycle, which  improves core metrics like usage and net churn. Taking this one step further, content paired with a SaaS platform presents opportunities for new product features or add-ons. For HubSpot, this could be a premium subscription for customers either at an additional cost or as a value-add to support annual price increases. Learning management system businesses have long applied this strategy by offering course content along with their platform and authoring tools. Finally, the data from content engagement can create intriguing opportunities to pair software usage data with industry trends. In this case, the Hustle already offers a data product – Trends – that will only grow in value within the HubSpot ecosystem.

For Digital Media Operators

Digital media has largely been struggling to find its way over the past several years to compete with social media and the rapid changes in content consumption. For digital media businesses in or around verticals where workflow tools are important, there are important implications. SaaS businesses, who may be some of your larger customers, could be future acquirers or could begin to compete as they build their own blogs and newsletter lists. Think differently about the SaaS businesses you have as customers and look for partnerships and deeper relationships to test the waters.

Alternatively, digital media businesses are in a unique position to swim upstream and add SaaS or workflow solutions to their offerings as I did at Praetorian Digital when we built an enterprise learning platform for first responders to extend our digital media communities. That effort ended up generating nearly half of our annual revenue. Doing so is a heavy lift and requires a major shift in culture and different skillset but is well worth the effort when comparing relative valuations and the opportunity to embed your business within your audience. And with software becoming easier to build and manage, the deep domain experience, engaged potential customer base, brand trust and content resident in any digital media or traditional media business presents a set of competitive advantages that will only become more important as we’re seeing here with HubSpot.

 

Alex Ford is an accomplished entrepreneur, angel investor, public speaker and executive. He served as Chief Executive Officer of Lexipol in 2019 and 2020 following the merger of Lexipol and Praetorian Digital, which he founded in 1999. Alex led the company to become the leading learning and content platform for first responders and local government leaders, driving 15+ years of profitability and more than 15% growth per year. Currently, he is operating partner at North Equity and strategy advisor to multiple companies.

While Hybrid Events Are the Clear Destination, Doing Them Well Will Take More Thought

by COVID 19Media

“What makes for a great hybrid event is really finding a kind of the core idea of the multi-screen experience.”
—John Capano, SVP of Impact XM

If pivot was the events word for 2020, then hybrid will hopefully be the word for 2021. An overwhelming 78% of those surveyed by Pathable plan to host events with both in-person and virtual components, if in-person gatherings are allowed. What’s more, just 17% of those surveyed planned to host in-person-only events when that’s permitted. But staging a good hybrid event will take some creativity and thought.

I listened to a good podcast from EventBuzz this week between Capano and host Savannah McIntosh of PurplePass. (I love that they include the transcript!) Of course, the tendency of late has been to say that we’ll all be doing hybrid events soon, when in-person events are allowed to take place again.

But Capano contends that hybrid cannot simply mean having your regular in-person conference, and then live-videoing it for folks who can’t attend. A lot of thought has to go into what works for an event that is designed both for in-person and on-screen attendees.

Here are some thoughts from Capano and others who are thinking about the return of in-person events:

Augment the live aspect. “It’s really how do you build an event that’s engaging across all areas, and really leveraging technology in such a way to augment the live aspect,” Capano said. “And so when we talk to our clients a lot, they talk a lot about virtual reality, we actually talked a lot about augmented reality because this idea of hybrid really is augmented reality. It’s let’s take a live event and let’s lay on a digital layer in an augmented way and have everyone have a connected engaging experience.”

Virtual can boost in-person. “It used to be almost everybody you talked to felt like, ‘Well, I don’t want to do a strong virtual event because it’ll cannibalize my [audience],’” said Capano. “And people have now realized that having a great virtual part of your live event is the best way to increase your attendees at your next [in-person] event. [See FOMO.] It becomes the kind of the marketing engine that scalability is the marketing that drives your future attendees.” Adds Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association: “One half will see the event virtually. They will see how safe it is and want to come in-person next year.”

Virtual is still about knowing your audience. “What’s the purpose of your meeting and what are you trying to achieve?” Capano asked. “Then design the technology to fit that. Once that’s done, just ideate the heck and brainstorm the heck for ways to get people more engaged, like shorter content, snackable content, ways for them to interact, and ways for them to not only interact with, say, the speakers or the acts but also other people at the event. For example, you could draw inspiration from siti non AAMS platforms, where user engagement is heightened through innovative features and competitive elements. Adding in gamification can make it fun, interesting, and a little bit competitive.”

Pack a surprise. “Add in some ‘Easter eggs,’ because that’s something again, that we try to do [to keep virtual people engaged],” Capano said. “What are the cute, little surprise, delight moments, those things are all very possible in the virtual world, you just have to put thought against them, because they’re a little different than they would be like exactly what you might do in a live setting.”

Here are a few ideas from an article in Trade Show News Network this week:

Decisions will need to be made quickly. Virtual events pioneer Pathable predicts that 38% of decision-makers will choose between hybrid, virtual or in-person for their events within the first quarter of the year. Furthermore, about 40% of planners say they will settle on a platform to host their events by March.

Virtual must stay in the conversation. “INVNT Co-founder and CEO Kristina McCoobery is optimistic that brands will return to in-person events, albeit smaller than past levels. But of note is that 2020 opened the door to reaching larger numbers of attendees through virtual events—a fact that won’t be lost on savvy groups. ‘Virtual attendees mustn’t be treated as an afterthought, and their experiences need to be carefully curated in the same way they are for an in-person audience,’ she said.”

Look for more customization. “How do you get attendees to engage more at events? Start by adjusting your event rather than expecting your guests to change their behavior organically, said David Peckinpaugh, president of Maritz Global Events. ‘By better understanding our event guests, we can design more personalized experiences for their event journey,’ he said. ‘Most importantly, we need to let design dictate event structure and content rather than simply cutting and pasting from previous live event agendas.’”

Get creative with offerings and pricing. McCoobery believes that “we’ll start to see more and more monetized interactive competitions followed by exclusive content offerings to unlock, immersive activities that allow audience members to create their own avatars and explore a space or live gig with others, and tiered payment plans, including VIP packages.” That is a mouthful!

Social network scheme, which contains flat people icons.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at SIIA

by PolicyPress Release

Alone we are smart, but together we are genius.

SIIA members are united by a shared belief that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are critical core values for society and our individual organizations. We believe achieving greater advancement in DEI is not only the morally correct course of action, but also research proves diverse organizations provide better business results. Embracing a diversity of perspectives fuels innovation while connecting us closer to our customers and the communities we serve.

For too long, underlying inequalities, racial biases, and discrimination have plagued the United States and communities around the world, denying too many the ability to contribute to and reap the benefits of the innovation economy. Removing these barriers to elevate opportunities for all individuals to participate will lead to the creation of new businesses and foster economic growth.

As business leaders, we recognize our responsibility to contribute to the betterment of society not only through the information, products, and services we provide but also as good citizens. We also recognize that while DEI is rooted in the need to address historic social inequities, we strive to create workplaces that reflect the communities in which we work, live, and serve our customers and where everyone feels empowered to bring their full, authentic selves to work. This means promoting a workplace culture that welcomes a diversity of ethnicity, gender, identity, nation of origin, and thought.

SIIA is committed to work with our members and within our organization to improve DEI performance for the benefit of our employees, the industry segments we represent, our nation and our world. Our efforts include:

  • Organizational Policy. Ensure that we are an organization making progressive change toward diversity, equity, and inclusion through our hiring practices, culture, operations, and offerings.
  • Member Experience. Assist our members in improving DEI outcomes through our content and knowledge offerings as well as by our example as a membership organization.
  • Promoting diversity in our internal staffing, among our volunteer leadership, our speakers, and presenters, as well as our vendors and partners.

This includes but is not specifically limited to:

  • Ensure the representation of diverse speakers at all SIIA events.
  • Ensure diverse representation across SIIA boards, committees, councils, and working groups.
  • Strengthen leadership and staff accountability and capabilities for inclusion and diversity.
  • Enable equality of opportunity across our organization through fairness and transparency.
  • Promote openness and tackle microaggressions.
  • Foster belonging through support for multivariate diversity.

Promoting DEI is not just about words. It is about action. SIIA will seek to advance our diversity goals in 2021 by:

  • Compiling data to identify metrics. We cannot know how to address inequities until we know what they are. We will capture data on demographics within the SIIA workforce and among speakers across our events to help us understand the diversity of our employees and speaker rosters and identify any areas of concern or
  • Setting a specific metric by which to measure speaker diversity at our events. Once we collect data to establish a baseline, we will set a goal to measure our success in improving outcomes.
  • Conduct a membership survey to help identify their needs as related to DEI and lead to the development of programming, and/or content to help
  • Leverage our content channels to help educate and share solutions. Integrate DEI topics across SIIA content channels, including events, and our digital and print publications. Seek to include one DEI-related story per week/month for newsletters and per issue for Signature magazine, one of our flagship publications.
  • Develop an award to recognize contributions to DEI by SIIA members. Award will be integrated into existing award
  • Review our RFP and contracting processes to ensure we are providing partnership and vendor opportunities for minority-owned and operated businesses and organizations.
  • Revitalize SIIA DEI Staff Committee. Task the committee with conducting an equity audit of our organization and develop specific metrics including questions to examine and hold us accountable in:
    • Organizational success in meeting stated
    • Our recruitment and hiring practices.
    • Ensuring diverse representation across our management and volunteer
    • Provide regular updates and reports to SIIA leadership and help support reports to volunteer
Woman connecting with her computer at home and following online courses, distance learning concept

Get Dressed, Adjust Routines to Your Vibes and Stay Connected, CEOs Advise

by COVID 19Media
Woman connecting with her computer at home and following online courses, distance learning concept

During an October 2019 SIPA webinar on managing remote workers, Heather Farley, COO of Access Intelligence, said that the most relevant stat was that 90% of remote workers said they’re more productive. “We hear this a lot at AI,” she said. At that time, many of us might have raised our eyebrows. Now, we’re all (tired) believers. But is it sustainable?

“Many also advocate for experimenting with small adjustments to your routines to hit your most productive period in the day,” Diana Shi wrote in a Fast Company article titled 9 CEOs Share Their Best Tips for Successful Remote Work

That sentence struck a chord for me. At around 7 am this morning, I read work emails written around 10 pm last night. And I’m sure that colleagues look at my 7:05 am emails the same way I look at their late-night emails—when I’m either asleep or on the verge—and we make similar exclamations. We all have different times and vibes to get our best work done, and working remotely encourages that.

Looking back now, it was prescient of SIPA to conduct that October 2019 webinar with Farley and Dan Fink, managing director of Money-Media. They gave an excellent blueprint of what to do and not do managing remote workers. Let’s mix some of their advice with some from the CEOs that Shi featured in her article for an updated guide.

Invest in relationships. “Find creative ways to still informally connect with your teams, to build and strengthen relationships,’ said Niren Chaudhary, CEO of Panera Bread. He also advises to share praise. “Remember to recognize and show appreciation of your team.”

Engaging in meetings is very important. In October 2019, Fink was concerned that remote workers would receive audio and video feeds from conference room meetings. “We’ve installed some large screens in conference rooms. There’s a marked difference in how that person participates. And how the people feel; it feels like that person was in the meeting room. It really does make a significant difference.” Today, engagement in meetings remains important. I’ve read that we lose a lot by multitasking during meetings. A recent study found that “those who focused on nonverbal communication cues from their colleagues or said they tried harder to listen attentively were less likely to see any change in the quality of their work relationships.”

Make time for one-on-one voice calls, without video. “There’s a lot of video fatigue, so be conscious whether all parties want to use it,” says Anne Chow, CEO of AT&T Business. “With family, do take advantage of all the benefits of video, especially with those whom you haven’t seen for a while. If they don’t know how to, get them set up.”

Ask for feedback. I think this one still applies. “Is this working for you?” Farley asked. “What are the pain points? Are you lonely? Do you feel disenfranchised? Is the work getting done? Relationships work because they’re built on trust. We talk about it on a regular basis, to have regular touch-in points is critical. Things don’t just happen. Clear the decks and course correct to get those situations working.” She also said to “over-communicate.” Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO of Coursera, agreed and said that’s also incumbent on the manager. “Communicate. Schedule time for more all-hands, team stand-ups, one-on-ones, and skip-levels.”

Check on their technology. Pre-pandemic, 77% of remote workers were between ages 25-44. But now it’s everyone. Money-Media was quick to order “kits for a number of staff who were having difficulty being efficient in their home work space; things like a mouse, keyboard, monitor, office chair, etc.,” Fink said. “Most of these items are pretty inexpensive on amazon.com but go a long way to helping staff be productive and letting people know how much we appreciate their hard work during this crisis.”

Pretend you’re going to the office. “In this virtual world, maintaining some of the habits that helped me think and feel my best when I was going into the office has been really important to me,” said Joel Flory, CEO of VSCO, such as getting up early to exercise. Any guess what Jennifer Hyman, CEO of Rent the Runway—a subscription fashion service—recommends doing? Get dressed nice every day, of course. “Getting ready in the morning helps signal my body and brain that productivity is my priority.” I’ve read that some people even ride around for a half hour and then come home to give the commuting feel. I’ve kept my Friday tradition of driving to Heidelberg Bakery in the morning.