Angus Certified #018
Angus Certified #018
Why companies should create their own podcasts, how to make it easier for people to buy your product, and productive uncertainty.
Back to our regularly scheduled biweekly programming.
In today’s newsletter, I take a look at the role podcasts play in marketing (not as an advertising platform, but as a content and brand-building engine for startups), a great read on startup strategy for both investors and marketers/founders, and actionable takeaways on improving the sales funnel from Emily Kramer.
If you have any brand marketers at your company or in your world, please forward/share this with them. Let’s get to it.
Jeff
Podcast as a content vehicle
Love them or hate them (I have a foot firmly in both camps), podcasts are here to stay, even if we are in the post-hype phase. In some ways, podcasts are a distant relative of Web3, the metaverse, and NFTs (a much more successful, credible relative, mind you). When we were all stuck at home with nothing to do, a lot of us bought microphones and started talking.
Whether you listen to them to learn, to be entertained, or both, they have proven to be a great way for content to get shared and brands to get built. Like social media, the good and bad parts of podcasts come from the same thing: a very low barrier to entry. This has made it easy for anybody to create one, which has led to a total saturation of the market, with a glut of podcasts on… essentially everything.
That being said, I have seen firsthand that launching a podcast can prove to be an effective marketing tool for companies of all sizes, especially smaller, early-stage ones. Why? Let’s find out.
Podcasts are affordable
The hard parts of a podcast are the things that don’t cost money: the positioning and strategy behind it, preparing for each interview, securing guests, and so on. The actual dollar costs themselves are small, and a fraction of what they used to be thanks to advances in equipment, software, and editing tools. Between overseas contractors and AI, you can edit and transcribe high-quality podcast episodes for next to nothing, and get a solid mic and hardware set up for a few hundred bucks or less.
Most startups have a zero budget for marketing, so as a content creation and distribution channel for low cost, podcasts make a lot of sense.
People like to talk about themselves
One of the biggest challenges most small companies face is getting any co-marketing (testimonials, quotes) from partners, advisors, or other stakeholders. Startups simply are not a priority and often don’t have much leverage. This is usually the best type of marketing to get, and podcasts are a way to reframe what some may consider a chore (talk to us about our partnership or work together) into an opportunity, simply by changing the medium from writing to talking.
It gives your customers another way to find out about you
Some people like to read. Some people like to listen. It is important to have as many channels covered as possible so you can reach your customers. Like all of the above and below, this applies to consumer brands as well as highly technical B2B companies. In some cases, the more technical a company is, the more opportunity a podcast provides.
It lets you play around with brand-building
The best way to build a brand is in collaboration. A podcast allows for a larger sandbox. What do your customers or partners think about your brand? What is going on in the market according to industry leaders and experts? Take all of these inputs and use them as needed. Brand building should always be both a combined internal (talk to people at your company) and external (talk to the market) exercise.
It creates momentum in the market
Podcasts can be framed as a series or a season to create some momentum over a 3 or 6-month period, which I have found especially helpful during the lead-up to fundraising, during a slower period in terms of marketing announcements, or to help launch new products, services, or brand updates.
I have used podcasts for all of the above reasons with several clients, and each time the output gets better. This doesn’t mean that I’ll be launching one myself (yet…), but I wanted to plant the seed out there for companies of all sizes. Don’t discount podcasts as a way to market more affordably and effectively.
What is Productive Uncertainty?
Every few months, I come across an article that I immediately plug into my work. This post (from 2020, but is more relevant now than ever) on Productive Uncertainty is the latest.
In a nutshell, the author lays out the thinking for why many investors and VCs focus on the wrong things when making their bets on startup companies.
Investors bet on startups whose products were better than their competitors’ products. This sounds like a good thing, but it is the wrong strategy: they bet on companies with competitors.
I hadn’t thought about competitive markets this way before. As a marketer, I often frame competition as a good thing (helps to build a new category and gives early-stage companies something to position against), but as an investor, it is really hard for start-ups to build a competitive advantage early on in an already-competitive market.
Investors need companies that don’t have much competition to start and that can build moats to prevent competition later. Startups whose success is predicated on a new, better technology rarely make the transition from innovator to dominant player. Technology in itself is usually not a moat, and companies that are based on introducing new technologies rarely get to build moats. Investors need to invest, instead, in companies that are entering new markets.
This usually falls on deaf ears when sharing with technical founders, but technology itself is usually not a moat.
This inability to predict what will happen when a startup pursues an innovation keeps other companies from entering to compete: they will look at the opportunity and say things like “it looks like a toy” or “there’s no market for that.” Once the startup begins to succeed they will re-evaluate, but a smart startup will have built a moat by then. The uncertainty gives the startup time and competitive space.
This is what the author means by productive uncertainty. Startups that are pursuing markets and ideas with uncertainty have the best chance to succeed because other companies (and in particular, large and successful incumbents) won’t willingly follow them into uncertain waters.
Uncertainty, generally, is something to be avoided. If you can’t predict the outcomes of your actions you will have a hard time planning and managing. And if others see that your business proposition is uncertain they will shy away from including your product in their plans. But uncertainty can also shield against competition, allowing you to create excess value. If it does, it is productive uncertainty. Innovations, because they are new, usually come with uncertainties of one sort or another. Founders have to choose the subset of innovations where the uncertainty is productive to have the best chance of succeeding.
I love this framing. If it resonates with you, I would highly recommend reading, and then re-reading, the article in its entirety. I also wanted to highlight the below section, with a specific strategy to help increase the likelihood of start-up success: system rigidity.
Even before entering the market, if the startup works to make the system less uncertain it can do so by making it less uncertain for itself and not others. Contracts, standards, narratives, etc. can all be customized to suit the startup better than potential competitors. System rigidity is one of the primary sources of sustainable competitive advantage: since making the system more rigid is what removes complexity uncertainty, startups can take advantage of this to build these moats.
Make it easier for your customers to buy your product
Another must-read from Emily Kramer at MKT1.
E-mail capture, demo requests, sign-up, lead nurturing - this is the tactical stuff that helps move the needle for small, B2B technology companies.
When I run through a bad demo request process (which is nearly every time I go through one), I find myself saying “Just take my money [startup] and stop wasting my time!” Once prospects decide they want your product, they likely want to pay you, get into the product, and improve their workday asap. Stop making it so hard.
Removing friction should be a weekly meeting topic for all start-ups, especially as it relates to the sales funnel. If somebody actually wants to request a demo, they should be able to book it on a day and at a time of their choosing, in as few clicks as possible.
The takeaway: review your funnel more often, and remove friction as much as possible.
Thanks for reading. Catch you in a few weeks.
Jeff