1/ I think a podcast is the #1 channel you can use to build a brand -- B2C, B2B, individual, doesn't matter.

Brand is not your logo or cool website design.

Brand = your reputation.

No better way to build a reputation than getting inside someone's headphones.

2/ Podcast also gives you the most leverage. You can turn a podcast into a YouTube channel, clips, content for social, write books from it, bring on guests, find speakers for your event, etc.

The ROI in podcasting for business is NOT the download number. You aren't selling ads.

3/ You can also be wildly successful with a small audience.

If you sell enterprise software to CFOs -- you don't need more than 50-100 CFOs listening to see real business value from it.

A small audience can be powerful. That's the power of a niche.

4/ This is the reason the very first "brand investment" we made at @privy this year was launching The Ecommerce Marketing Show.

40 episodes, 30,000+ downloads. 6 months worth of content from experts like @lovevalgeisler @kvlly @mrsharma @babakazad @kurtinc and others.

5/ You don't need a 6 figure creative agency or 6 months of design work to build a brand. We actually did the re-brand SECOND. There's nothing to wait for. So we focused on building the audience first.

6/ The norm is build the visual brand first, because how can you know what to podcast/create about unless you know what the brand is going to look like?

I dunno. That feels slow to me. Wait another 3 months to re-design and then we can launch the podcast?

Let's start now.

7/ The podcast has also allowed us to crank up content production with a very small (one person, she's @lwalkerhall and you should get to know her) content team.

In 2019 total there were 66 posts on the @privy blog.

2020 to date there's been 90+.

8/ This strategy would also work with YouTube; it just is usually easier to make excuses for video (need gear, need an editor, need guests) so my bias has been to launch with audio.

9/ The podcast also will *rarely* be a direct response channel for you. But it 100% can impact the bottom line -- we have seen 50% growth in organic *and* direct search to @privy since launching the podcast in January.

10/ If you wanted to test using a podcast to generate "leads" or emails -- you could have a CTA upsell at the end; hey for bonus content, subscribe here.

And you could even write your own ad script and do a 30 sec promo read for your own company on the podcast.

OK I'm done.