The Marketing

Jen & Chris discuss, "The Marketing" - How they plan on promoting and advertising their scripted podcast, THE STRANGE CHRONICLES.

In their recurring segments, they cover "Technical magics or mishaps," "How the writing is going," and provide a "Podcast tip," something to help you along your journey in making your own fiction podcast.

Email us at info@thestrangechronicles.com

Sign-up for our mailing list at https://thestrangechronicles.com

Thanks for listening!

Transcript

00;00;10;26 - 00;00;24;16
Jennifer
Hi and welcome to Making The Strange a podcast about how we made our fiction podcast. We will take you along with us in real time while we create our first fiction podcast. I'm Jennifer, the writer and creator of the Strange Chronicles.

00;00;24;16 - 00;00;37;26
Chris
And I'm Chris, the producer of The Strange Chronicles, a sci fi noir detective podcast.

00;00;37;26 - 00;00;49;06
Jennifer
And in today's episode, we're going to talk about what it takes to create the marketing and how to make a fiction podcast. We'll talk about social media connecting with other podcasters and advertising.

00;00;49;06 - 00;00;58;15
Chris
We'll also discuss a technical mishap that happened along the way in an hour. How's the writing going segment, Jennifer? We'll discuss how the writing is going.

00;00;58;24 - 00;01;04;23
Jennifer
And finally, we'll provide a podcast tip, something you can use as a strategy for your own podcast.

00;01;04;25 - 00;01;08;01
Chris
First, a quick rundown of this podcast and why we are making it.

00;01;08;02 - 00;01;20;07
Jennifer
Yes, making the strange is a kind of a way we're chronicling our experience and making a fiction podcast. So it's a little meta, a podcast for a podcast. It's kind of an experiment. So we'll see how it goes and if it can help someone else.

00;01;20;11 - 00;01;29;13
Chris
The experiment is partly to keep us on task to make sure we complete the season and also to share what the experiences like for others who might have an interest in telling a fictional story through a podcast.

00;01;29;14 - 00;01;43;17
Jennifer
Exactly. So if you happen to be one of those people, we'd love to hear from you. Any questions or things you're unsure of pertaining to doing your own podcast? You can email us at info at the Strange Chronicles dot com and we'll be sure to include your questions in a future episode.

00;01;43;21 - 00;01;59;27
Chris
Yes, we definitely want your questions. We want to be able to answer those. And also, honestly, as you can tell, we've made mistakes along the way. If there's something that we've talked about that you have a better way of doing it, you've done it before. And you have a tip for us. We would love to hear that, too, because we are always looking to make the way we do things better.

00;02;00;02 - 00;02;08;29
Jennifer
Okay. And now it's time for our technical magic or mishap. And today it is a mishap. So, Chris, tell us the mishap that happened with the tech.

00;02;09;00 - 00;02;33;06
Chris
So today's technical mishap was a glitch in running our test marketing campaign. And, you know, we're not sure the best way to market this show. So I wanted to run some tests using this podcast. We had already done a promo for it, and I thought maybe if I could get some hits on that promo and get it out there to some other listeners, maybe they'd tune in to this.

00;02;33;06 - 00;02;37;05
Chris
And then that would lead to more listeners for the scripted podcast. It was a bit of a test run.

00;02;37;10 - 00;02;38;13
Jennifer
So what was the mishap?

00;02;38;15 - 00;02;50;12
Chris
Yeah. So the mishap was I uploaded our podcast to Google ads and it started to run in about 224 hours in it got pulled. My whole account got deplatformed.

00;02;51;11 - 00;02;52;21
Jennifer
That's pretty big mishap.

00;02;53;05 - 00;03;11;21
Chris
Yeah, I got this big scary email from Google that your account has been suspended due to suspicious payment activity. What? Yeah. Yeah. So, like, what's suspicious payment activity like. You think I paid you in a weird way, you use. All you do is have my credit card. How is that? This is suspicious.

00;03;12;09 - 00;03;19;10
Jennifer
Oh, my gosh. That's like for the strange chronicles. We need to have the suspicious credit card.

00;03;19;17 - 00;03;42;17
Chris
So, yeah, I looked into it a bit, and it turns out, again, I created a business account to run the ad through. So the account name was Kings of Content, right? And even though that's what it says on my credit card as our business name, it also has my real name as the name to Bill. So Google, if the account name and the credit card name don't match.

00;03;42;17 - 00;03;53;01
Chris
Exactly, they think that's a fraudulent payment like the I don't know if they think it's a stolen credit card or something like that. Okay. So they just boom automatically and they don't ask you about it first. They just shut you down.

00;03;53;07 - 00;03;53;18
Jennifer
Okay.

00;03;53;19 - 00;03;54;27
Chris
And then you had to file an appeal.

00;03;54;28 - 00;03;55;18
Jennifer
Oh, geez.

00;03;55;18 - 00;03;57;25
Chris
And they may or may not hear your appeal.

00;03;57;25 - 00;03;58;26
Jennifer
Oh, geez.

00;03;58;27 - 00;04;15;13
Chris
Yeah. So what I did was when I found that out, I went in, I changed the account name to my real name temporarily. Okay. Then I submitted my appeal. Explain to them what happened. And within 24 hours they responded and reactivated my account. And the ad was back up and running again.

00;04;15;16 - 00;04;16;20
Jennifer
Okay. Awesome.

00;04;16;21 - 00;04;18;20
Chris
Yeah. So just another thing until.

00;04;18;21 - 00;04;23;10
Jennifer
Just make sure all of your things match. Yeah. Again, everything has to be really specific.

00;04;23;10 - 00;04;29;20
Chris
Yeah. Even if you have a business account, you think setting it up under your business name is the way to do it? Sometimes it's not.

00;04;29;25 - 00;04;41;16
Jennifer
Good to know. Yeah. See, guys, we're just going to go through all these mess up for you. Hopefully we can help you avoid getting deplatformed from Google, but then at least we got reinstated, right?

00;04;41;20 - 00;04;49;24
Chris
Yes. Okay. Next up, we are going to discuss how the writing is going. So, Jen, how is the writing going today?

00;04;49;27 - 00;05;07;26
Jennifer
Okay. So I was struggling a little bit with some of the mystery elements of the stories. I do have them planned, but I did not even outline the next episode. So my verdict on the writing this time is very poor. Mu-Mimo.

00;05;08;01 - 00;05;14;01
Chris
So not so awesome. Next up, we're going to discuss the marketing.

00;05;14;04 - 00;05;18;20
Jennifer
Yes, this is the marketing episode, a thing we are not great at.

00;05;19;14 - 00;05;20;22
Chris
Let's start with the social media.

00;05;20;24 - 00;05;36;26
Jennifer
Ah, yes, social media. We do not use social media personally, so we understand that it's important for the business. So we definitely have started partaking in the social media for the podcast. We have a Twitter and an Instagram for each podcast.

00;05;36;26 - 00;05;38;23
Chris
Yes. And we have the YouTube channel.

00;05;38;26 - 00;06;01;24
Jennifer
That's right. And we're slowly but surely, I think we're so focused on the creative and the post of the creative right now that it's really hard to really delve into the marketing until we have all of it finished, I think then we'll be able to focus on the marketing more. So from this perspective, I would say that if you're making a fiction podcast, you might want to plan out some of the marketing before you even start making episodes.

00;06;01;27 - 00;06;11;29
Jennifer
I know that seems like a lot of work to do before you even press record, but now that we're in it, it's just really hard to market as well as make at the same time.

00;06;11;29 - 00;06;18;19
Chris
Yeah, having not been involved in social media for so many years, we didn't have any kind of following. We didn't have any kind of user base, any kind of a network.

00;06;18;19 - 00;06;18;27
Jennifer
Right?

00;06;18;28 - 00;06;22;23
Chris
Basically starting from scratch, trying to build up an audience from nothing.

00;06;22;24 - 00;06;49;03
Jennifer
Right. Exactly. Which a lot of people, you know, when they join in to social media for a specific project might have that same issue. But we also just are very green when it comes to how to start. So yeah, the social media is a slow but sure thing and hopefully we'll slowly start building. We are posting the promo, we're posting when a new episode comes out for making and hopefully that will build a little bit for the fiction podcast.

00;06;49;04 - 00;07;04;16
Chris
Yeah, we tried one thing. I did a promoted tweet to see how that would go again as a test. And while it reached a lot of tweeters, right, Twitter, twitterers, well, it reached a lot of people. It didn't spark any real engagement.

00;07;04;17 - 00;07;05;10
Jennifer
No listens.

00;07;05;10 - 00;07;10;12
Chris
Right. The not that I could tell. No. I mean, there speak. I saw about four clicks.

00;07;10;15 - 00;07;10;26
Jennifer
Okay.

00;07;10;26 - 00;07;20;02
Chris
And maybe we got 20 followers on Twitter and a few retweets and things from random people. But I think most of those followers we got were bots.

00;07;20;04 - 00;07;20;26
Jennifer
Okay, because.

00;07;20;26 - 00;07;27;26
Chris
I would go and look and see like, Oh, should I follow this person back? And then I would look at the profile and say, Absolutely, we cannot be linked to that profile.

00;07;27;26 - 00;07;38;04
Jennifer
Yeah, I think that's the thing too, is we're not trying to get followers or likes. We want people to listen to the podcast. So yeah, we're after actual listen listening people.

00;07;38;04 - 00;07;40;22
Chris
But we also do want to engage in the community, too.

00;07;40;25 - 00;08;01;12
Jennifer
Yes, exactly. So I feel like once we have a little more time to focus on that, maybe we'll be able to build that part of our platform. So now let's talk about connecting to other podcasters. That's something we definitely want to do but haven't done yet. We're still in the research mode, but we think this area actually might be the best way of finding listeners with a similar interest.

00;08;01;14 - 00;08;23;22
Jennifer
So as I've said in the past, I'm a huge podcast listener and I'm really excited to reach out to other podcasters who might be doing the same sort of thing or be interested. So that's kind of, you know, I think that's our next step is reaching out. We'll see how receptive. You know, I don't know if they get tons of requests for a chat or not, so we'll have to see.

00;08;23;23 - 00;08;42;03
Chris
Yeah, especially being an unknown in this medium, you know, is it better to try and reach out to them before the product is launched and say, this is what we're doing and see if we can gauge interest? Or do we wait until the whole thing has been released and then people have hopefully heard it? Right. And then we have something to show as an example that they can say, okay, yeah, come on and talk about this.

00;08;42;03 - 00;08;53;15
Jennifer
Yeah. I think for this though, we at least we have a few episodes of making the strange out and they can listen and kind of hear what we're trying to do, and then maybe they'd be interested in listening to the fiction podcast.

00;08;53;15 - 00;08;56;28
Chris
Yeah, I hope so, because my idea of marketing is you do it in advance.

00;08;57;14 - 00;08;58;02
Jennifer
Right?

00;08;58;08 - 00;08;58;22
Chris
You know.

00;08;58;26 - 00;08;59;02
Jennifer
I.

00;08;59;07 - 00;09;06;05
Chris
Want to get the word out ahead of time and have people come in for the premiere. And you gain you know, you gain those listeners right from the beginning and you build from there and grow like.

00;09;06;05 - 00;09;06;21
Jennifer
Sure.

00;09;06;22 - 00;09;09;10
Chris
Yeah. You don't want to start launching into an empty void.

00;09;09;13 - 00;09;16;04
Jennifer
True. But at the same time, someone could always find it later and listen back and binge. I mean, we are a binge society, you know?

00;09;16;04 - 00;09;29;05
Chris
Yeah, we are a binge society. We did run an informal Twitter poll and out of the whopping what three responses we got on the Twitter poll, you know, is like, what is the best way you have found to market your podcast was the question.

00;09;29;05 - 00;09;30;05
Jennifer
And what was the answer?

00;09;30;05 - 00;09;40;25
Chris
And that nobody there's 0% for ads. There is 0% for social media posting, there is 0% for other, but there was 100% for appearing on other podcasts.

00;09;40;25 - 00;10;01;14
Jennifer
Right. Which I think I mean, in my humble opinion, I think that's a great way because for me as a podcast listener, that's how I learn about other podcasts. If someone's interviewed on a podcast, I'll look up their podcast. If someone mentions loving a certain podcast, definitely. If a friend of mine says like word of mouth, Hazel, listen to this podcast, I'll check it out.

00;10;01;15 - 00;10;06;07
Jennifer
So it's like directly from someone you're already listening to, I think is key.

00;10;06;10 - 00;10;23;14
Chris
Yeah, that makes sense. All right. Well, I think the next thing we can talk about when it comes to marketing is advertising. So, you know, I talked a little bit about in our technical mishap, the Google ad that I ran. And again, I think that got 30,000 views across mobile devices and computers and televisions. Wow. Yeah, it was it was a lot.

00;10;23;14 - 00;10;27;01
Chris
But again, from what I can tell, near zero engagement.

00;10;27;01 - 00;10;28;26
Jennifer
People actually listening to the podcast.

00;10;28;26 - 00;10;36;25
Chris
People actually listening to the podcast. Yeah, yeah. They listened to the promo, right. But they didn't do anything after the promo ran.

00;10;36;25 - 00;10;37;12
Jennifer
Right.

00;10;37;12 - 00;10;53;00
Chris
So we're going to I've reached out to Spotify and their ad department. We're going to try and talk to them maybe next week and see about running an ad for The Strange Chronicles, the teaser that you just heard in the last episode, running that on Spotify during podcasts, specific.

00;10;53;00 - 00;11;01;08
Jennifer
Lee Oh, I think that would be a good idea. I mean, again, I've heard ads for other people's podcasts, and if it sounds interesting to me, I definitely give it a listen.

00;11;01;08 - 00;11;05;05
Chris
Yeah, and that's really the goal, right, is to get more listeners and more subscribers.

00;11;05;05 - 00;11;06;06
Jennifer
Totally. All right.

00;11;06;06 - 00;11;13;04
Chris
That finishes up the marketing bit of this episode. And now it's time for our podcast tip, something that we learned to help you make your journey easier.

00;11;13;04 - 00;11;17;11
Jennifer
And the podcast tip for today is make transcripts for your episodes.

00;11;17;11 - 00;11;29;02
Chris
Yes, this is a good one. You knew in doing a podcast that it helps people find it when there's more information attached to it. Right. And some of that information is chapter markers. Some of it is transcripts.

00;11;29;02 - 00;11;45;24
Jennifer
Yes. In my research for the podcast, I had read that the algorithms pay attention to words and hashtags and descriptions so that having a transcript is only more information for the algorithms to have about your podcast.

00;11;45;24 - 00;11;49;03
Chris
Yeah. So when people search up those words, it makes it easier for them to find it.

00;11;49;04 - 00;11;49;27
Jennifer
Exactly.

00;11;49;27 - 00;12;07;05
Chris
So in the scripted podcast, that's not going to be an issue, right? Because you already wrote the script and we're reading the script and performing the script. Correct. So all we have to do is take what you've already written and upload it. But when it's something like making the strange, where we're just going off the cuff, you know, you have our outline for us that we're working off of, but we say a lot of words that aren't on the page.

00;12;07;05 - 00;12;07;17
Jennifer
Sure.

00;12;07;18 - 00;12;11;12
Chris
So there's no transcript and transcripts can be expensive. Getting them done is like.

00;12;11;22 - 00;12;14;08
Jennifer
So what's our tip? How did we do our transcript?

00;12;14;11 - 00;12;32;24
Chris
We took our wavefile after we exported it, when we were finished with the post and we brought it into Adobe Premiere and that's their video editing software. When you bring it in there, there's this nifty little function where you can click on the audio file and it will automatically transcribe the audio for you.

00;12;32;24 - 00;12;33;22
Jennifer
That's awesome.

00;12;33;22 - 00;12;49;24
Chris
Yeah, it's amazing. And if you already have the software suite like we do, it's at no extra cost to you. So the AI goes through, interprets what you said. You do a quick read through. Yeah, the words look like what we said. You can name the speakers. It differentiates voices and within a couple of minutes boom.

00;12;50;00 - 00;12;52;06
Jennifer
Does it format it in some sort of way or.

00;12;52;06 - 00;13;02;00
Chris
Yeah, you can output a transcript file. You can output it as a text file, you can output it as a CVS filer or CSV file. I forgot what it was.

00;13;02;00 - 00;13;02;26
Jennifer
Why did we use?

00;13;02;26 - 00;13;18;25
Chris
I used a text because in Buzz Sprout it allows you to attach your transcript through one file type that we didn't have or just copy and paste text. So outputting it to a text file allowed me to do that. Great. Yeah. Big bang boom. And we were done. Well, that's it for this episode of Making The Strange.

00;13;18;25 - 00;13;39;20
Jennifer
We want to thank you for tuning in to our journey and creating a fiction podcast, and I hope that it can inspire you to create your own story because we believe that everyone has a story to tell. Please email us with any podcast tips for questions you might have at info at the Strange Chronicles dot com.

00;13;40;05 - 00;13;53;09
Chris
Thanks for listening. You can follow us on Instagram at making the Strange and at the Strange Chronicles podcast Be on the Look Out for the Strange Chronicles, a sci fi detective fiction podcast coming this Halloween until our next episode.

00;13;53;11 - 00;14;04;04
Jennifer
I'm Chris and I'm Jennifer. Keep it strange.

00;14;04;04 - 00;14;07;00
Chris
This has been a kings of content production.