Meet The Marketing Genius Behind Steven Bartlett

it's no surprise to us that the podcast is growing at the right is that's Grace Andrews the marketing Mastermind behind Steven bartler and the dire of a CEO the fastest growing podcast in the world in this episode Grace reveals their social strategy that took the podcast from 6,000 subscribers to 4 million the podcast had 5,000 followers on YouTube Steve sat me down and he went the next 3 months of your life are going to be the craziest learning curve of your life and he was right the behind the scenes secrets to Doak success every episode there's like how many thumbnails being tested 100 100 thumbnails being tested what most people get wrong about social media do not Bel on Instagram and I will hang my neck on that line trust me no one cares about it as much as you do and loads more and we've actually taken it a step further and I don't think anyone's in the team maybe even Steve hasn't spoken about this yet this is an absolute masterclass I really hope you enjoy it if you do please subscribe and let's dive in so Grace thanks so much for doing this really appreciate it let's start at the beginning how do you start working for Steven bartler always good to start at the beginning so I was freelancing and I think it's worth noting that I have no marketing qualifications either I had just finished as the pandemic was uh like un evolving or like coming about I just finished a broadcast journalism master's degree because I thought I wanted to be a journalist like I was sat on being 10:00 news behind the desk presenting like that's all I wanted had to get this quite qualification ticked off anyway that finishes up and there's no jobs like the pandemic is in full swing there's no way to get work experience you need work experience to get into the industry it's one of those like who you know who you know and so I took matens into my own hands and we'd actually studied as part of the degree social media journalism and that was my first introduction to the world of of social media from a like business perspective as opposed to a user perspective because we're all users right and I came away and went well I'm going to have to make the most of this like I'm back home in my childhood bedroom I have no way into this industry I'm going to force my way in and I'm going to push those doors open so that when the world opens up again I'm there I'm primed I'm ready so I on a whim set up the social climber which is kind of what I go by online and I started creating my own educational content to mainly educate myself so that I could develop this authority to then start to educate others and attract kind of clients I started picking up some freelance work I mean originally at the start it was all free so like totally pro bono and I worked my way up and I like figured out socials I figured out what worked I figured out how to stay ahead figured out the trends and the platforms and like I spent a lot of time learning which is so important like people just we were we were laughing because or I probably shouldn't say we were laughing but we put a job out for a social media manager and anyone thinks they can do a social media manager role because they use social media you need so much willingness to learn and like drive and passion we can go into that but I started freelancing I was building up a good client like uh base and I was really really enjoying it like I loved the freedom and flexibility and the ownership and I loved all my clients I was working with and then this job post comes along Steven Bartlett posts on LinkedIn I'm looking for a social media manager and I was like not looking for a role which is always how it happens right it's when you're not looking it's when you're uh like really enjoying what you're doing and I thought that's going to be kind of my fork in the road moment and I could either kind of carry on what I'm doing develop at the rate I'm going it's going well it's going fine it'll be like a slow burner or I can skip ahead 10 years learn from the absolute best in the industry and so we I I I applied on a whim and it was like three bullet points you know his like his job hiring process and I didn't I half didn't expect anything from it and half of me was like I'm going to try and make this happen so I contacted everyone in the team well there was only one person in the team at the time and I was like hey can I get some insight how could I get in and within two weeks like I'd started because I got in at the right time um and it wasn't it's not a case of you know there's obviously an element of luck and there's an element of right place right time but I'd also been working and grinding behind the scenes so that when this opportunity came up I was actually like a very good qualified candidate and I had the proof and I could demonstrate it and I was willing to just kind of get stuck in which if you've ever worked in like small small small startup environment like you do a bit of everything and since then coming up for three years ago I've kind of evolved from social media manager where the podcast had you know less than 10,000 followers across the platforms just me and the podcast producer to marketing director position where I'm kind of leading a team of five six hiring a couple more at the moment and it's been a wild ride yeah I love that I love that and I love the I think um it's amazing when you actually sit on the other side of the fence you realize the bar is so low when you're putting out um job roles so anyone who just comes across like they really want this and they like send those extra messages all that other kind of stuff you just stand out and it's such an important thing such an easy thing but no one does it it's it also makes my life so much easier like if you can stand out to me and demonstrate to me why you're good so I don't have to go through a lot of applications saves me so much time so in this you know this role that we're hiring for at the moment daak social media manager they're going to be responsible for the growth of the podcast on socials the people that have stood out and the people I'm drawn to are the people who've reached out to me on my personal channels connected with me on LinkedIn they've gone above and beyond they sent examples they've sent case studies they've done stuff I haven't asked because I see that spark it gives me more than like a piece of paper three bullet points can ever do and they're the people I'm interviewing yeah and I know there's kind of a lot to be said about you know people don't have time and capacity to be doing all these extra like flamboyant things but if you're set on a role that you think genuinely has the power to change your life like I'm not even being dramatic put all your eggs in the bar to go like go for it and just set yourself apart from the massive who are applying in the traditional way and don't get me started on LinkedIn easy apply because there's no point yeah and it's like when you come to that Instagram page and someone's like or built the digital CV that's what I want I don't I don't want to look at your actual CV the best things are when people send me like a two-minute video about them yeah I'm like done got to know you got to know you on a way deeper level I now feel more connected to you and I feel like at least I owe you a reply whereas when I'm getting a piece of paper it's a little bit humanless and I mean I'm not you know like we don't need to talk about recruitment on this CU I'm not a top recruiter but that's that's my method to the madness I think it's worth just um that we did just cover that though but let's I'd love this to be like a master class in marketing podcast marketing social media so maybe we start at those first few weeks what do the social channels look like at that point and then like where are they today sure so when I started reals weren't a thing yeah Tik Tok wasn't a thing posting videos to LinkedIn wasn't really a thing so we're going back to like very text based and this is only two like two and a half three years ago which is crazy when you think about the evolution of these platforms so we introduced I introduced short form content essentially to the strategy which as we all know the boom of short form content across Tik Tok across YouTube shorts across Instagram has been phenomenal in getting new eyes onto your onto your content and getting that reach and that was a huge turning point for us but those those first few weeks Steve sat me down and he went the next three months of your life are going to be the craziest learning curve of your life and he was right and I learned so much I sat next to him you know day and day out he's literally built a social what the UK's leading social media agency at the time from the ground up he knows everything about social media which is really rare to have a boss who is well versed better versed than you and social media what I often have is people messaging saying how do I convince you know the stakeholders to get on board with this campaign or this creative how do I extend my marketing budget and I really have to sit back and go you know I'm not the person to ask on that because I've always been less informed than the person I'm working for um or you know trying to stay ahead and be at their level which has been like fantastic chasing opportunity yeah on day one though are you what are they like YouTube at like 10,000 personally he's got like on Instagram what would he have when I joined he had so we already had a base of 1 million on Instagram big audiences like already in the millions so it's different to kind of the ball game I was playing before which was small businesses local businesses thousands of followers you know 10,000 followers um so the podcast had I remember so clearly had 10.2 th000 followers on the day I joined and today we're talking we're you know head heading maybe when this comes out 4 million and that's happened in the space of two and a half years really maybe two years actually by the time we like really double down on the content so yeah the growth has been pretty remarkable and what do those first few weeks look like does do you does he say okay like give me a weekly schedule there there's this schedule already we're already posting this kind of stuff like what is is it a blank canvas and do you set goals do you set a do you start with a strategy like this is my vision for it like where where do you start and and and does that is that how you would recommend other people start I wouldn't recommend what I'm about to say yeah but on day one Steve sat me down and he goes so when are you going to start posting and you can imagine me a million followers on Instagram you know a couple hundred thousand on LinkedIn and he goes well when are you going to startop posting and I'm like what like so I'm just going to click post right you're going to give me the content um and he was like if you don't post you don't learn and it's so so true so that element of it has stayed with me all the way throughout I tell my teams all the time try it if we don't try we don't learn fail fast that's our culture however there is you know Merit to creating a social media strategy the research the execution and and the analysis and that feedback loop is how you're going to kind of gain those Inc succeed on those incremental gains and really kind of start to develop that that growth strategy so there's one thing to kind of post and execute and Faceook fail fast but if you don't have that beginning you know and a research process and you don't have that end an an never say analysis analysis then you're not going to grow you're going to kind of stay at that same level and actually probably start to kind of decrease in your growth because you're not growing so what's that first part the research bit and does that involve like setting like what's the purpose here like what what do we stand for or is that even a piece before that I think it's always important when you're going in with your social media Strat or your podcast Strat or whatever it is to understand what you want to achieve is it growth is it Community uh establishment and nurturing is it new eyes is it new leads because it's going to dictate the type of content you're posting so that that stage is really critical and it's really important to get everyone on board with that because you might get down to you know demonstrating that the content schedule showing the content schedule and they're going well that you know that post isn't going to convert into any sales for us and we're going well no we just want to get new eyes so it's a different strategy so on that level being super clear on what you're trying to achieve and creating a framework process to measure it at the other end critical but in terms of trying out and testing new things I think there's like flexibility within that framework and we don't believe in rigid formally structured content pillars which kind of goes against the R artive of social media managers or people who work in Social because it doesn't give you that flexibility to kind of experiment um and have that trust to kind of run with it without having to get sign off from stakeholders which you know I've been lucky enough to have that trust from day one so I would I wouldn't go down it it depends on the size of your business and what you're trying to achieve but I think at a top level you need to know what you're trying to achieve is it growth is it new eyes is it conversions and create your goals around kind of those metrics and then you've got something to measure in three months and that might Evolve three months in you might go okay we've warmed up this audience now we've got a product coming out we've got a pcast episode coming out we're ready to go into the conversion stage then your tactics change then your messaging changes then your tone of voice changes a little bit so it's important at that level to know what you're going for yeah and I've heard you talk about Brands like Red Bull they they help Foster a feeling um can you talk a little bit about that how you see how you see that how you see that for for d as well of course I think so people buy from people right and the reason that you know this old ad old saying is because people buy from connection and from feeling and from a place of vulnerability if you're posting about your product online trust me no one cares about it as much as you do how do you get them to care you've got to show that feeling and emotion and build connection on that level that's beneath the surface so that when you do release the products or you do bring anything out people people are there to buy because they're so eager and they're so desperate to get involved because they built that established connection and we're seeing more and more in socials that that connection and that Community piece is so pivotal and important that warmup process that buildup that tease that bringing the kind of user Journey on the bringing the user on the journey and the build is so pivotal and why I talk about Red Bull is because their product is an energy drink you go on their socials you're not going to see a picture of an energy drink I promise you there won't be a single picture of an energy drink there might be incorporated into an asset someone drink it at some point because it's part of part of the brand but there will be not one single product photo product photos do not belong on Instagram and I will hang my neck on that line like product photos do not belong on Instagram because people are not looking to be sold to it's like of repellent to organic social media users they don't want to see sales they don't want to feel like they're being sold to and they don't want to feel like they're consuming something that's an ad which is why Red Bull do it so well because you go on their feed and they're creating a feeling a community a connection which is what we need to achieve with our social media CH like our social media organic channels because it's also really important to remember that social media is just one of your channels in your marketing mix or it should be anyway maybe your place to sell if you have a podcast is through your email so maybe you're building up your CRM database so that when the the time comes to do a live show or sell a product associated with the podcast or expand the brand you've got that database who have signed up who are willing to be sold to your organic channels in my opinion are your opportunity for reach and the content should be all about kind of reach growth connection community and and they're the kind of areas you need to stick to and I'll come back to Red Bull there what they're creating on their feed is energy and that's what their brand is about that's their why I talk talk about this a lot don't you know publish or what publish or why because the why is what's going to draw the connection in if you want to feel energized I know that I'm going to go and look on Red Bull what's the why for Stephen the why for the why for Steven and the wife of Doak is slight is slightly different but in terms of D of a CEO we want to um Inspire motivate and engage with as many people as we possibly can on important topics um that you know that's the basis of it so for us when you when you think about that our content needs to reflect inspiring educating and engage engagement on a variety of different topics you know we we do have CEOs we had Co CEO of Spotify on today but we also have health experts who have you know no social profile and it's we have the the biggest range of guest actors comedians uh authors all all sorts and I think that our goal in terms of marketing it when all this change is happening has to stay the same so we have to keep that front of mind that this is for the community without them they don't exist without without them this doesn't exist so we focus on them at the Forefront of every single thing we do every clip every post even the long form episode itself we're going is this serving our audience is this catching the attention of someone who doesn't care yeah if you unlock that you're like into the magic yeah I think that's why why yours works um because if you look at it from like the what perspective it doesn't make any sense it's like is if you were starting a podcast and you spoke to a podcast kind of expert they would say pick a nich stick to it you know business talk to the best entrepreneurs sport talk to the best sports people and Doak has like evolved and it's been a journey but like if you if you were to say speak to all these different people from different fields you might think that doesn't make sense but because you've got that why and like what you're trying to get from every conversation and then demonstrate that for every piece of content you create I think that's what makes it so special we want people to finish an episode finish watching an episode listing leaving Having gained something yeah that's our that's our mission it's and you know we get the most unbelievable unbelievably motivating kind of letters and emails and DMS of people who say you know this episode changed my life and that's our why like that we go [ __ ] we need to double down and do this 10 times more because these are real people and it's touching them in a really really genuine way and that's our reason that's that's why we keep doing it yeah let's get a bit more into the nitty-gritty um of the the podcast and how marketing and social kind of shapes it do you how involved are you with with guests and topic selection and that kind of thing so at the start we were doing everything from guest booking trailer editing before we had our Pros on board clip cutting topic selection title testing all of that stuff and as we've grown and evolved we've established a team of experts so we now have a podcast booking team which and a research team and A production team and a social team Eclipse team and it's it's a Content generating machine so there are experts in you know I'm one member of the team and there's experts in all of their different areas within the team so you're constantly learning from everyone but it means we're able to scale and work at the speed we do I think when what's often confused is we'll speak to a kind of a a smaller more like startup level podcast which we were at just a couple of years ago so I can relate and they go oh you know the D CEO are getting 10 Clips out a day across all their channels you know how can we possibly compete and remember we've got resource you know remember it didn't start that way we started with one clip a day and then we built up sustainably with the resource we had available so you know the comparison game is can be very damaging and detrimental but it's also important to remember that like we we did start there as well we started just figuring it out and just trying new things and just trying to Market a podcast in a way that no one else was doing it yeah let's talk through some of those kind of breakthrough bits and chunks there's there's short form video yeah how do you approach that our short form video strategy is all focused around how we can reach new people and keep them engaged for as long as possible we're actually not super interested in directing them to the long form piece of content so we'll let them know where it is but we're not selling which I think is really important we're not kind of pushing it down their throats that they need to go and see the long form cuz actually short form is a is a visual art in itself that people are consuming more and more and more eventually they might talk about it offline and you might develop these warm needs that then turn into people who go and watch but we're not pushing it down their throats so in terms of our how the process looks is we'll get the we'll usually have someone sitting in on the the recording so we have a green room someone's listening live speed up the process because then they can highlight the moments that we've come to learn perform best on our different channels so we know that anything about sort of Health whether it's mental and physical relationships performs really well on Instagram we know anything to do with work life balance or careers or entrepreneurship bangs on LinkedIn we know that on Tik Tok the craziest thing happen craziest things happen so anything that anything from a 10-minute clip of I mean we shared this week a 10-minute clip of Maisy Williams literally sobbing and breaking down in tears and it's got 7 million views to 2 second behind the scene moments you know Tik tok's our space where we do a lot of experimental stuff so we'll get the long form piece someone will sit in they'll highlight those key moments they'll then take that sometimes it's an add sometimes it's a social person if they can't be live they'll be watching the recording they're marking down the moments and then it will go to our kind of dedicated Clips editors of which we have two and sometimes we work with Freelancers if we you know there's a volume of them as well and they will work religiously to make sure that those clips have the perfect story arc one the best hook possible which might not be the start of the clip you might be dragging the middle to the start so you get those people in those most those those first three seconds as we all know those first one and a half two seconds are the most pivotal to your watch time if you can get them in for that you're probably going to hook them for 5 10 15 which means your content is going to get shown to more people so that's why that's so important and then to come back to your story arc has it got a beginning middle and end is it serving a point do you finish the clip going cool I learned something or that was interesting or that felt complete and I think that's really missing from a lot of people's content at the moment they will see the podcast slice it up maybe using kind of some of these AI tools which I don't think are producing the best Clips yet and you'll kind of end up with a a bit of a washy unproduced point so that's that's kind of the basic level and we're also not set on every podcast episode must produce 10 Clips so I'm episodes we'll get 20 Clips some episodes we'll get two we're not going to compromise a standard to force them to happen so I think it's also really important to have like flexibility because not every guest is perfect for every platform and forcing and repurposing it straight into those other platforms is probably not going to be where they audience are going to you know best receive it so really think about your platforms really think about that story arc and that and that 3 second hook and then you know short form has evolved so much in the last few years how can you level it up can you bring Graphics in can you can you bring sound in can you bring BTS moments in can you bring com comedy in what can you do to level up that clip to make it as engaging as possible and we're testing stuff all the time from the the subtitle style are we doing Dynamic Subs are we doing colorful Subs are we moving the hook from the middle to the start because actually that's more engaging are we trying 10 minute Clips are we trying 10c Clips we're just constantly trying new things because it's the only way we can learn what's what the sticking points are right now and I say right now because I'll probably change in 3 months the platforms change the trends change so it's all about just constantly trying new things analyzing seeing what works seeing what didn't and doing more of what did yeah that's gold an absolute masterclass because so many people they think I'll just stick my my podcast into Opus or whatever the AI tool is it will spit out some clips I'll stick them in the schedule Bob's your uncle 100K followers here I come I know and it's like there's like levels to all of these games right and it's not to say that that that other approach isn't wrong as a starting point but then to get your data um but then there are levels to the game and I I think it's what we've also started to do is create a short form first strategy which is challenging when you're working with a long form piece but what we're always looking for is kind of the before the podcast starts and the after the podcast starts those moments Those Behind the Scenes moments those intimate moments that no one gets to see where you're off camera or it's happening kind of out of the podcast environment perform unbelievably well so it's also worth thinking kind of you've got this whole filming time can you use bloopers can you use the bits that aren't meant to go on camera can you use the bits that don't make the final word it because something happens and it's funny that's a short form first strategy rather than working backwards from the long form yeah and I think we're starting to see a a turn in that in that moment and that's why you know we're bringing someone in fulltime just going to start sounding like a hiring hiring pitch and we're bringing on someone full time to focus on a Doak first social strategy that isn't a case of just Channing out what we've got second as like a second thought it needs to be a first thought and it needs to be prioritized because podcasts on't organic growth platforms you don't get external uh search you know search views through like Spotify or apple podcasts you kind of do through YouTube but not everyone's even filming their podcast still so you those external platforms to be driving views into those platforms those are those those are your reach platforms and they go hand in hand let's talk about something that I think nails that which is the trailers how did they come to be oh I I can't take any credit for the trailers we have the most fantastic I mean you talk about goats like the greatest of alltime trailer editor and Shout out an um and essentially what was what it started being is we thought okay you have a show you have a movie you have a TV program how do they promote it there'll be a trailer there'll be a a Sizzle there'll be something that draws you in to tease the episode coming out and we've always thought about doing things differently to how everyone else is doing them so no one else was doing trailers no one else was promoting really through social because not many people in the UK were filming we were one of the first you know podcasts shows to take the video side of it really seriously and not compromise and not use zoom so our standards have always stayed kind of here and now we're going above and above and above and we started with kind of Jack would just produce a kind of short form version of of the long form with the most hookie part at the start and some sort of cliffhanger and that's what our model was and then we brought in someone fulltime who at heart is a Storyteller they I mean he is a genius if you ever kind of have the opportunity to engage with him like 100% engage with him he is the leading you know leading trailer the best trailer add that exist he's come from you know working in Disney and movies so it brings another mindset and a different approach and people won't notice but every single trailer has a new experiment running in it there's some sort of detail happening some sort of things being turned or changed or amended or being tried so that they're constantly evolving and constantly getting better and they've become synonymous with the brand and what we think is amazing but also quite funny is seeing everyone creating D style trailers as a result of it um it's become kind of like industry standard and Industry leading in that way which is just remarkable to us cuz we never could have expected that but it it's just thinking from first principles I'm going to sound like Steve here but how do you get someone to watch something and you know how do you get people to want more serve them a juicy hook draw them in and then leave them wanting more at the end you could can do it with a clip but even better mash up all the best bits and pop it together in a trailer and it's just thinking about it from from how do you get people involved how do you get anyone to care position the problem demonstrate that you're going to offer the solution and then tease them in to come and watch more and the amount of times are kind of being you know if I haven't and I'll be toasty honest if I haven't been there for the podcast recording and it's maybe not a guess that I think oh you know that's super up my street I'll watch the TR and I'm in and that's how you make someone who doesn't care care yeah they're genius and like you say they've created a whole kind of industry in themselves of like just copycats and rest of it and no one can do it anywhere near the same level so it's I mean we like we we need a second one and we can't find anyone who could do it yeah it's such an art and when I say you know everyone's trying to replicate what they see as the final product no one is seeing what work is going into those the back and forth the detail the story story boarding the planning the iterations the sound Obsession the you know all what taking out the audio and just listening purely to the audio for the moments that create that emotion no one's seeing the work that goes in so no one will be able to replicate it yeah I love this framework it's from Alex hosi and it's he sits he he tells his editor I want you to to to put together a short form clip for me in an hour and hour goes by he makes the clip Alex Z comes back and goes yeah that's good what what would it look like if I gave you a day then he comes back a day later and he shows him the the next version of the clip he's like yeah that looks pretty good now how about if I give you a week and it you know there's levels again to to that game if you spend how long's he spending on these like a week or like days we now have so it it was just an and we now have someone who's kind of doing the first section and then handing over to him for the second section so but that's two full-time people two fulltime time people on the trailers you can't replicate it unless you're willing to Resource at that level and commit and DED at which we were we wanted to double down on this space so that we became industry leading and that's kind of what's happened but he he could turn around one in I think if he worked 24 hours a day like three days yeah but it's like for it's a process from the moment the podcast is recording he's there manually taking notes of the moments and you know he's learned a lot in the last year and a half about the moments that work and the moments that don't work as well so you start to develop like an ear for it and means you can get quicker and quicker but he's amazing yeah is something you touched on the experimentation within every single one why is experimentation important and what are some of the best experiments you've run breakthroughs I mean experimentation is the is the key to growth if you're not experimenting on social platforms you best believe you're going to be starting to decline in your your reach and your growth and your performance because the platforms are evolving the audiences are evolving and the content Trends are evolving at the speed of light so experimentation is the key to success in terms of a lot of marke marketing channels but especially in organic in organic socials when I think about experiments that we've run I mean AB testing podcast titles and thumbnails was the biggest eye opener to us I mean when I say we're we're obsessed with experimentation we've just hired a full-time experimentation manager who actually got taken from my team which is very devastating because she's incredible but I'm going to let her flourish in her new role who is dedicated to executing and analyzing experiments within every team to ensure we're always staying ahead and staying one step in front of the curve because as soon as you get a complacent you're done as soon as you think we're number one now should we'll just take a week off it's why we don't do series it's why we've never missed a week in the last two and a half years we will execute even if all goes tits up there is an episode going out Monday 8:00 a.m. Thursday 800 a.m. because we don't compromise on our standards um some more experiments a recent one actually is how can we speed up the process of Steve feeding back the the parts of the episode he found really compelling so that they can get featured in the trailer we've actually I mean everything we do is a bit Cowboy but we've glued a trackpad to the underneath of the table you might have seen him speak about this so that when a moment comes up and it's connected to Jack's iPad Steve will just tap and it will highlight in the transcript because we're using AI to create the transcript live as it's going along and it's sped up process unbelievably so that feedback loop has you know shortened from hours to seconds which means we've got more capacity to do other things I think that's also why experimentation is so important we're also strapped for time in this like fast-paced world how can we find more time and give back time to different members of the team yeah and there's so much that you're saying now which people just don't see I've seen your Facebook ads library for the thumbnails so just talk people through that every episode there's like 20 thumbnails being tested 100 100 thumbnails being tested so I mean it's no secret if you go look in the back end you're going to see it all and you may have been served them before but so say episodes coming out on Thursday a week before we are running 100 thumbnails using three different facial expressions and iterating it kind of three times across those those facial expressions we'll then run them for a week up until kind of the day before to understand what is the most engaging title what are people clicking through to also it serves as a fantastic way to build up a subscriber base because the call to action is to go to subscribe so that when the episode comes out you're ready and waiting and we'll look at all the data we'll look at the click through we'll look at you know CBC we look at everything to understand what are the key points people want to talk about and we've actually taken it a step further and I don't think anyone's in the team maybe even Steve hasn't spoken about this yet but we are now doing a pre-research testing phase so our researchers will establish the 20 30 topics that they want Steve to talk about in the conversation they kind of the topics that no one else has spoken about before the research they've uncovered and investigated and we're then we're now running those as thumbnails to understand the topics that people are more interested in and more inclined to talk about or get engaged with or get involved with so that that can dictate the conversation Steve leads with and also the assets we lead with in post production no one sees any of this unless you're looking yeah but there's even there's invisible stuff that we I could never I we could be here for 10 hours and you I couldn't talk about it all because it's all of that kind of invisible stuff that's happening behind the scenes which is why you're starting to see the compounding growth now it's no surprise to us that the podcast is growing at the rate is like it it's we six six months the work we put in six months ago the work we put in a year ago is now kind of starting to be seen by the public you know what they say about if you're if you're losing weight you notice it after a month your whatever after a month and then everyone notice after month three that's the same with what we're doing it's invisibly happening behind the scenes and we're what we're doing now is going to be representative of the growth that happens probably between like 5 and 10 million because the next few months are dictated by what happened six months ago you can't change that you can only change what's going to kind of compound for you in the future yeah I think it's always good to be thinking like almost hating what you're putting out now because you know how good it's going to be in two three four five six weeks because you're already working on that stuff and putting in the systems and the processes that are going to like just free times it um I think the topic selection is is is quite interesting as well I think Chris willix does a great job of that like certain segments of his podcast are just like perfect for YouTube and I'm sure he's like pre-planned them because he's got the title and the thumbnail already pre-programmed just on the titles that's another thing you're a master at it's you you can have a podcast with someone that nobody's ever heard of and sell it how do you do that do do you test different stuff and like what's the general approach there so we're testing thought we do title tests as well as thumbnail tests so we're title testing before we're looking in the back end of YouTube and understanding what topics perform well we're looking at kind of that uh author or industry expert and seeing what people are interested in in their industry and we're doing all of this research behind the scenes to find the key words that are going to help the searchability help the reach and help the recommendation in the YouTube algorithm because once you're in the algorithm you're set so it's really really about niching down down and finding exactly what is going to you know trigger those algorithmic shifts and we're looking at all sorts of things from you know Google analytics to research in that specific community and how we can and the and the the real trick to a title which I'm not actually directly involved in the process anymore is really truly understanding what problem they can solve and it's about making it broad enough so that people are interested and specific enough so that people feel like this is the one you've got to listen to and it's an art and we're all you know figuring out but we have criteria that every say title option of what we produce 20 or 30 The Producers produce 20 or 30 titles we then have a spreadsheet of four pieces of criteria that every single one has to tick in order to pass into the testing process do know what I mean this sounds like absolutely ridiculous it sounds so pedantic when you say it out loud but it also makes me so proud that we're we're figuring out kind of the loopholes and the things that people aren't doing yet and setting the trends for what's to come yeah you're playing chess and everyone else is playing checkers love that um the YouTube is just like the growth on that is crazy is there is there any lessons you you can share there are there any lessons we're doing something interesting at the moment which involves engaging with the target communities that we want this to reach whether that's a demographic a country a community prior to the episode to get them engaged in order to share as soon as the podcast is released so we're almost kind of working to build like a network per topic per guest type who would ordinarily share organically but if we can speed up and reduce that gap between going live and them sharing means that we get that first hour rush and the first hour on YouTube is pivotal the first 10 minutes are pivotal the first hour is instrumental to the performance the episode yeah there's things that can come in later algorithm share it can get recommended after a different podcast but how can you hack the algorithm you optimize for that first hour which is why the audio goes live at 600 we don't promote the episode until 8 eight is when it goes Live on YouTube and the trailer and all the visual assets lend you to wanting to watch because it creates that kind of emotional connection and it become it has become more of a show you know it's on BBC I player it's on International Airlines it's on all these uh devices because people watch it as much as they listen actually which is quite interesting so in terms of YouTube It's priori prioritizing that first hour optimizing and testing your titles so and your thumbnails so you can run there's there's loads of I mean you can now do it actually within YouTube but Che buddy is what we used to use to live test your thumbnails to see what's performing best you get results after like 48 hours I think so you can see if one is outperforming another and you can optimize as you go so it's not like everything has to happen before and then it's done and you put it out there and you go you know good luck hope you get hope you go into the algorithm it's all the things before and then it's all the things in that first hour those first 24 hours those first 4 hours and we are I mean if I leave this it's a Thursday morning I'll go and check and we have a podcast Channel we have multiple podcast channels on our slack there will be 10 people who have screenshot by the 10 minutes the the watch time the view rate is it performing better is it performing worse what can we do to change what can we tweak how can we get this performing the top in our last 10 if it's sitting at the bottom what are some things we can change and experiment with and try and figure out to get it in front of the Right audience and the YouTube YouTube algorithm is really interesting and it's worth there's some great explainer videos on YouTube that you know I won't do it justice but it really is about matching up who they believe the video is intended for and how and who you want to reach with this audience with with this long form piece of content and if you get that o the closer you can get those dots to overlap the more chance you're going to get sprung into the algorithm and that means um on the recommended uh side which if you get in you're you're Off to the Races and at the end of other people's content so there's some strategic things you can do keywords topics making sure there's overlap but there's also stuff that people aren't thinking about physically putting your podcast in front of those audiences so that they're drawn in and you're overlapping yeah and I love the the the um top boy recent one that like aligned perfectly with something happening the AI one um just quickly as well paid on across your socialist do you do much of that yes we uh we were in house and we're currently Outsourcing it because we want paid paid the best in the paid World tend to be Freelancers and external because they get more budget to work with and they get more chance to you know explore and try new things so we're currently using fantastic external and we are we do both paid testing and then paid promotion post episode we also do paid for all sorts of experimentation we use it as our kind of testing tool because it's controlled variables yeah and would you do that on YouTube to say like to to find that audience immediately would you would you would you use paid yeah so we will upload the trailer and we'll upload a couple of clips into paid and we are targeting specifically per guest the ideal audience that we're trying to achieve so one that comes to mind that I think about all the time is black coffee is South African DJ his episode was kind of going like this it was fine it wasn't performing best it was maybe like mid average we pumped paid spend behind pushing it into a South African audience hockey sticks yeah because you've suddenly got in front of your target audience and you've been able to manipulate that slightly and it's a controlled manipulation that's that's pushing the right people to the right place because it's not getting seen organically and there you're you're are you pushing the episode or are you pushing like a a separate clip which is the trailer on we're pushing the trailer yeah to we're pushing the trailer as the asset to and sometimes quotes sometimes static quotes as well from the episode Statics tend to perform quite well as well we're trying new things all the time but our trailer is our teas and that would be like from Instagram to YouTube or on YouTube yeah so at the moment we're only running paid on meta and Tik Tok sometimes so we're yeah we haven't deled into like anything really Google or YouTube yet I think that's the other thing that anyone who's a podcast or Creator should think about is like where does paid come in because like this is a crazy valuable tool like you say it's the perfect testing environment but like creators are out there and they're like just relying on organic stuff you've spent hours and hours invested loads of money in this piece of content and then you're just like hoping for the best yeah and there's there's so much you can do on a low budget there's so much if you're willing to think outside the box and not try and replicate because is as I've said you you can't see what's going into it you can only see the finished product so you're never going to replicate what's actually going into that you can try some really cool things and experiment and get in front of new audiences and do some out of home stuff look at your other marketing channels like your marketing mix shouldn't just be organic social it doesn't make any sense how are you converting are you building a newsletter are you are you doing paid are you doing out of home are you you know all these other avenues and channels your strategy when we talk about strategy I don't love to like delve in too much into a social media media strategy but you do need to strategize your media mix yeah 100% you guys do an amazing job of campaigns and I think that's a little bit more Your Role now the book launch is a is a cool recent one how would you think about that kind of campaign the book launch was phenomenal we and also it's well saying we were prepping and planning that book launch for maybe six months and we work with a fantastic Publishing House you know leading in the country who were able to kind of support with some aspects as well which was different to last time but the the key thing with the book launch yes you saw the gold boxes yes you saw the you know the influencer gifting and the paid collaborations with you know the biggest book pages to get in front of the Right audience and the organic content and the competitions and the live event with Simon synic they're all like top level stuff do you know what I mean that's like the sprinkle on top the magic the stuff that's kind of going to get it round and get it get it going get it to New audiences get the reach the stuff we've been doing for the last year and a half is preparing our audience preparing our community so that when we drop something they're at it like Hawks they want it they need it so it's not really like yes there's you know Roi like we've seen return on investment from those gold boxes and the reach organically from those was phenomenal because of the Strategic element of ensuring everyone had to post we C like we gamified The Experience how do you ensure that someone posts when they get 10 PR boxes a day you say that they can't get in unless they have to post and that there's loads of things to play around with there and not doing PR boxes that you see everyone else getting because if everyone else is getting them they don't care about yours it's like what we started with like standing up from the crowd doing things differently but really and again anyone can replicate the gold box anyone can replicate doing a live event on the day anyone can replicate give replicate giving away 30 three gold books you can't replicate the work you haven't seen us doing for the year and a half warming up our warming up our audience so that they are primed and ready for this moment the teasers the the the everything we've done to make them feel connected and offered so much value for free in that time podcast is free to consume it's which kind of blows my mind because it's an endless bit of knowledge any subject any topic you're getting an hour and a half two hours of an in-depth Mastermind from the leading experts in the country internationally the leading experts in the world so we've offered all that for free so we bring out a book for1 pounds you best believe they're ready and they're primed and they're ready to buy and this is what I was talking about earlier in terms of don't just you know you can't just replicate a take- to Market launch that someone else has done because you haven't seen all the groundwork that's gone in behind the scenes for the year before that if you're launching something next year start now start warming up start adding value to your audience in a way that no one else is so that when you are ready to launch that product when you're ready to do the live show they're there in your hands it sell out it sells out every time we released you know the de live in a year and a half ago when the audience was a quarter of the size we sold at the London plum in 7 minutes they call us and say we've never sold out a show like that ever can we do another night we're like okay we'll try our best sells out in 15 minutes they're like please one more night one more night and then we're like okay that's it so I was out in half an hour because we've created this design and this like aspirational Community where people understand their value they're getting for free so imagine what you're going to get if you pay for it yeah the other type of campaign that you do is where you you partner with Brands how do you think about that kind of process brand Partnerships are really interesting at the moment because we're seeing some Brands and influencers creators get it right and some get it so wrong and the key to a successful brand partner partnership is creative control with the Creator not just sign off not turning up for a shoot and following the script ideation stage whether it's the team or the Creator themselves creating the content storyboarding story aring it because if you are not leading that your audience will see right through and the brand wants to engage with your community and they want your audience that's what they're you know they're using you as a medium to reach a desired target audience hopefully if they've marched up properly so you've got to let the Creator have control it it's got better but it blew my mind in the start that we would work with the biggest companies in the world I'm not going to name drop anyone name and shame because we're still working with loads of them and the relationship's got so much better but they would you know be so um religious about the terms and the you know how they wanted it to be without giving the freedom and the creative control to the to us who knew our audience and it used to baffle me that these people and these companies were flogging a huge volumes of their marketing budget into something that I KN I knew when I hit send wasn't going to convert so why wouldn't you give the people who were running the brand and running the creative the ability to communicate with their audience that they do every day about your brand in a really organic and authentic way and there's this General narrative right now that like influencer marketing is dying it's it's rubbish actually we're seeing a huge rise in the B2B influencers space and especially with micro influencers who aren't full-time influencers that's where you're seeing really interesting stuff happening and you know myself with 15,000 followers that I've kind of grown very slowly and intentionally slowly so they're hyper engaged are getting huge Brands come to me because they want to reach 15,000 people it's a huge amount of people who are highly engaged over someone who has 5 million followers who shot up with a viral reel or a viral Tik Tok a couple of viral you know elements and actually have a really dead and unengaged audience so there's huge potential for brand collaborations and influence and marketing still if they're willing to relinquish Creator control to the Creator and that they get the the partnership right you see it so many times where you know they maybe someone down the hierarchical ladder or someone who doesn't really get the space finds these influences that actually they're really like unmatched and it's not a great overlap if you think about like as a vend diagram with the influencer and the brand you want that depending on what you're trying to achieve with the campaign how big that overlap you want to be in terms of is it acquiring new audience actually is it speaking directly to Their audience Etc and the overlap is sometimes very very minimal and you are not going to get anywhere if your audience are not interested in the product you're trying to sell to them because that is essentially what we're trying to do yeah and you guys nail that I think when I look at the brands and inspiration you do whe it be whoop Zoe hu like crafted they all match and align perfectly I think the other interesting Dynamic is when you get to the size of Stephen with the influence that he does what is the bigger play here because I see he's got he has equity in in hu Zoe some of these things this isn't just a podcast anymore this is just like a media platform that I can see sat onet fli or I don't know where do you guys have like a vision for it some people you see what Oprah built there's like a lot of potential here we don't want to do what anyone else is doing so we don't look at anyone we don't look at any everyone of a lot of people often say you know we look up to dark who do you guys look up to because we don't look up to anyone in the podcast space because we don't want to do it like anyone else is doing it because that's what really well for us up to press so we want to build this into the biggest media brand it possibly can be there are lots of things going on behind the scenes as you can imagine we're really hot on distribution right now so we're working with really cool um Brands to get it on their equipment yeah screens uh in the sky we want it on every Airline possible you know we've we've partnered with BBC I player this year which has seen incredible numbers for their platform we want as many people to be able to access us as possible like that's that's our mission so whatever we can do to get there is is the plan we don't we don't have an end goal we love what we do we're all hyper if not slightly toxically passionate about what we do and the reward is seeing you know people respond and people engage and people at Live Events and people coming up to you about it and it's the most rewarding thing in the world so we just want to make it as big as we possibly can yeah what's your relationship like with Steven you know he's probably going to watch this which is it's good like it's like working we shouldn't and we don't use the word um we're a family but we work together a lot of hours of the day we spend a lot of time together and I have a you know I have huge respect for him and everyone else in the team and you know he works harder than anyone I've ever come across in my life but it's hugely inspiring and hugely motivating so I see it as the you know I see my job as the greatest honor in the world yeah did you ever fall out do we fall out uh we disagree on like loads of things we he'll share something I'll share something we exchange points of view we both listen we move on it's we're in the same industry so we're kind of on the same side a lot of the time but he's so experienced in this space and he's so knowledgeable that often for me it's a case of going okay here's what my thinking but like I'd love to listen to why you're thinking about that but never on a personal level yeah good um um let's talk about your socials a social climber this is how do you think about that you're on LinkedIn and Instagram do you have like a a vision for what you're doing do you have much of a plan behind it originally the social climate was my way to Showcase two potential prospecting clients when I was doing my freelancing and I loved it the community I established the people I've met um it's it's just incredible you know some people that are actually really good friends in real life now which is so weird to me because it was really just uh a place to Showcase and as I said generate leads and then it evolved as I kind of got the full-time role to being more of a passion project because you best believe there is no time in the day to be taking on kind of extra work as much as I would love to as much as you know so many people message about it I just I just don't have the time I started um when I first started I was still doing like a little bit of a consultancy but my job is all consuming I love it but it's all consuming so I very much kind of gave up all of that and just treat it as a platform for my own like experimentation and to keep myself educated because that is the difference between someone who's going to be successful in this space and not someone who's willing to stay ahead I prioritize reading learning listening 30 minutes every morning to Something in the industry because one it keeps me stimulated two it means I will become an industry leader and that's really important to me so I think when I think about my why with the social climate now and what I'm building on LinkedIn is simply to establish myself as a kind of thought leader in this space and someone who people think of when they think of social media marketing and they go oh I know a girl oh I've seen her do some stuff oh that's cool she's kind of keeping us in the loop and I just want to kind of keep people educated and up to speed and people are so busy and I do it for fun so why wouldn't I kind of share that as much as I possibly can and it's a great space for me to keep up with new features experiment with new features try out stuff before we do it to millions of people so yeah I love it and you know people talk about consistency and posting every day and that's the only way you're going to grow this lovely Community has this like sustainable growth and I post when suits me because I've set that standard from the start and they know that that's what they can expect if I want to go if I wanted to grow it like if I wanted to scale it I could but I'm really enjoying the kind of the size that it's at and it's creating some crazy opportunities yeah you do a great job of just speaking to one person I notice it's almost like you know you're my best my my besty social media marketing expert and you're just keeping me up to date with Secrets all the latest stuff I would say as well do you ever think about kind of if I at the moment I want to hire a social media manager you know I'm thinking where where would I get the best best social media manager probably is is through your Instagram where you're LinkedIn do you think about kind of wider opportunities there I've hired three members of my social team through the social Climer so when I wasn't particularly looking for roles people kind of came out of the woodwork and offered themselves up and yeah three of my three h four hires recently have come through have come through that so it's a huge opportunity I was I'm still thinking about some sort of referral scheme but it's just time and I often will post on behalf of different brands that I'm um affiliated with I do a lot of hiring for the Steve's Dragon Den investment brand so I will build out their social media teams which is a whole element that I never even discuss anywhere um so I'll do a lot of recruitment through there and it is essentially community of social media marketers and small business owners who want to learn about social media so it's a really really great audience a great space yeah if anyone didn't think it was a good idea to build a personal brand it's just like a competitive Advantage for life because people you get you can hire people you're seen as a leader you can share your expertise it's just like everyone should be doing it let's just very briefly like when you're looking for the social media person or a marketing person what are the kind of two three things you're looking for I want to know that they I don't really care necessarily about skills but I want to know that they have a ridiculous passion and drive to learn I want them to come to me and go you know I am not the expert in paid I am going to do this this and this to make myself that expert or I've SE and what often really helps for me is if someone comes and goes I've seen you're doing this I think a really great way to do this would be that to do it like this because one they've paid attention to what we're doing they're tuned in and they're trying to experiment already which fits in with our values really nicely so I'm looking for people who are willing to kind of get stuck in get their hands dirty um show like a willingness and an understanding of the industry um willingness to stay ahead that they're doing extra stuff they're like attending webinars and they're reading stuff and they're sharing and talking about stuff if they have a personal brand even better um and that's kind of what I'm looking for like skills we can teach but I really need you to be driven and a nice person to work with because we're going to spend a lot of time together do you have a favorite task you set them um I did a task recently actually for this this role that has proven really successful and what's really interesting is that most people came back with very similar similar Concepts um and stylistically everyone tries to kind of emulate the brand in their in their task so they all have a really clear style to them which was really interesting to see because that's what we're obviously putting out and people are absorbing um and the task was one element of it was to kind of give them a case study or give them a proposition or give them a concept and tell me what you do with it that no one else is doing so I put them a guest I put them a situation kind of like scenario testing yeah and I said if budget that you know there's no limit tell me what you would do how would you get as many people to watch this as possible and you just get to see like their creative cogs wearing and people come back with just like the craziest stuff of course we're not going to do like 90% of it but I love the way you're thinking and it's Limitless thinking and it's yeah literally Sky a limit so I'm on board that's brilliant I'm going to use that let's wrap with just a couple of quick fire questions yeah kindest thing someone's ever done for you oh my God there's so much um oh that's not a quickfire question that's a deep question um kindest thing anyone's ever done for me I mean so many so many people come to mind but just when people are willing to help for no reason I think that is just the kindest thing in the world and I so many people come to mind both at work and um in my family and at home and I just have and friends I have the most unbelievably supportive network of people around me who have definitely helped me through the tough times in this role so I have a lot to be grateful for best advice you've ever received um so again so many people come to mind needed to pre-warm me on this no Jing um I think the no best advice I've ever received was um moal at episode one on D keep it keep ital um who said that any time and I live by this and I practice it anytime you have a moment of like Road Rage or a moment where someone really pisses you off or walks up to you and like does something totally unnecessary is to literally out loud and it happened to me yesterday because someone was very rude to me when we were driving they put their window down and said something and I just went in my head you don't know what's happened in their day to make them be like that kill it kill it with kindness and to reset your mind so you don't waste time being angry or like upset or let it get to you in any way because it doesn't mean anything is just out loud talk about say three things I'm grateful for immediately I don't know the science but it releases like the the whatever it is the happy hormones the oxit that makes you forget about everything that's just happened and it's been I know it sounds super cringy but if you literally go like I'm so grateful to even have this car right now I'm so grateful to be driving home to a cook meal and I'm so grateful to have had a day of work where I'm leaving so happy you're not pissed off about the road Ridge anymore and it's changed my mindset that's genius top two books um shoe dog Phil Knight Nike Burke uh fantastic and obviously D3 no but one for the role maybe one for the role like what's thing um one for the role I'm actually reading a fantastic book by my friend Daisy herd right now all about Community marketing um and there's not much in social media not much stuff makes it to print because it's so temporary but this is kind of like solid foundations that will down you the test of time in terms of nurturing and building and establishing a really successful Community but seriously d33 laws okay yeah is actually I heard I've heard some good reviews already is it it's everything you could need to know in a position of marketing or leadership yeah who are the two three creators that you follow that you're that you really admire admire um I'm really inspired by Sophie from Pretty Little marketer she is building an incredible marketing a community of marketers her content is fantastic um and she's super super lovely as well and just oozes with inspiration every time I look at her content I'm like why didn't I think of that um and then who else I really inspired by there are so many I'm really into like fashion creators at the moment and I'm not going to be able to name the name this guy's name but people who do like really like leveling up their content like I've never seen before I mean like I love your like Alex hoses and like all the people who been on the podcast but I'm like trying not to mention any of those um I mean this stuff though is good isn't it and like people who just get like Transitions and you are mesmerized and you can't stop watching there's one guy in particular I have to send it to you later um but also Alex Cooper called her daddy yeah um what they're doing with podcasting and the on network is fascinating and I'm keeping a very close eye yeah Smart Cookie yeah lastly where can people find you um I'm Grace Andrews on LinkedIn I'm atth Doo climber on Instagram yeah hopefully that's enough awesome amazing thank you so much there's so much value in there I just yeah I'm like buzzing I'm gonna get can't wait to listen to it again and then implement it all thank you so much thank you for doing it

Channel: Callum McDonnell

Views: 288,792

Keywords: creator economy, podcast for content creators, podcast content strategy, social media for podcasts, steven bartlett, grace andrews, grace andrews the social climber, the social climber, grace steven bartlett, steven bartlett marketing director, steven bartlett marketing, marketing masterclass, how to market a podcast, podcast marketing, diary of a ceo trailer, diary of a ceo jobs, diary of a ceo podcast, how to grow a podcast, how to grow on youtube, steven bartlett vlog

Id: 44gUHzuLb78

Length: 67min 5sec (4025 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 09 2023