Happy Monday 💪 &🧠Fam!
If you’ve haven’t heard of Morning Brew, please check them out here. If you have, you’ll know they’re one of the most popular online email newsletters — providing up-to-date news daily in 5 minutes.
But why are we talking about Morning Brew?
Well, this week on the Gritty and Curious podcast, we got the opportunity to have a conversation with Josh Kaplan, the Head of Podcast, Strategy, and Operations at the Morning Brew. He is the backbone of one of Morning Brew’s podcast, Business Casual.
We learned a lot through this hour-long conversation and was definitely one of our favorites to record.
In it, Austin and Josh discuss a great deal ranging from:
Morning Brew’s Strategy with Podcasting
Lessons Learned from Starting a Podcast
Future of Audio
… and more!
Take a listen below or in the audio player above!
As always, we have provided Podcast Highlights below with the key takeaways from the podcast:
🎙 Josh Kaplan
Podcast Highlights
Why did Morning Brew get into Podcasting?
Audio is becoming more prevalent as a source for media consumption. It's a lot more intimate compared to a picture or a tweet as the audio goes directly into your ear. Podcasting is different compared to many other forms of media because it's not fighting with other content in a social media feed. Instead, once you subscribe to it, it goes directly to you.
In addition, podcasting is a very easy way to build proof of concept and proof of audience without much overhead. If people like an idea on a podcast, it's not too hard to extend it to other platforms/mediums such as video and Youtube.
How has Morning Brew Strategy Changed With Podcasting?
Business Casual's strategy stemmed from figuring out the components and value missing within the Morning Brew Newsletter. While the newsletter provides a great five-minute overview of the current state of the business world, it lacked the depth for those interested in a particular topic. With this problem in mind, the Business Casual Podcast was formed. The podcast created an avenue for Morning Brew to delve much deeper into the stories, trends, and people behind the business stories in which a 5-minute Newsletter couldn't offer.
The Business Casual is defined as a "show". Why is that different from podcasting?
Podcasting has a very strict connotation. It has to be free, universally receivable and openly distributed.
By calling Business Casual a "show", it broadens the scope of where Business Casual can reside and by virtue, it's business opportunities.
The Business Casual is no longer confined into just being a podcast and can explore different mediums and platforms as well as evolve its brand.
One example: Business Casual is trying to set up a commerce site that provides affiliate links to all of the books discussed within each episode of the show.
Thoughts on Spotify signing exclusive deals to bring in Podcasters
It's exciting and dangerous.
In the future, media companies such as Spotify will start rolling out ad platforms similar to Youtube which help creators monetize their content without lifting a finger. If Spotify can figure out how to align advertisement content to match podcast content, it will make advertising in podcasts a lot more powerful than it is right now.
At the same time, media companies such as Spotify may start declaring ownership/IP over content which may make it hard for creators to seek opportunities elsewhere.
Business Model for Business Casual
Whereas many podcasts sell ads as an exclusive feature within an episode, Business Casual sells ads on an impression basis. For example, if an advertiser buys 50,000 impressions, their ad will be displayed in 50,000 listens of a podcast and then stop playing. This is valuable because it means the ad can be "fresh" and listened to an episode regardless of release date.
In the future, Business Casual plans of displaying ad space on the cover art of their podcast for a flat fee.
For those who are starting podcasting, how do you transition into interviewing bigger name guests?
There's no silver bullet.
However, what you can do is make yourself as valuable as possible. Then, provide a simple, polite ask the person you are trying to interview and give them reasons why they would be a good guest on the podcast.
Key Quote: "The better you make your podcast, the better you curate your guest for your listeners, you get closer to whoever your dream guest might be."
Future Plans for Morning Brew in Podcast World
Creating new brands and shows that are related to general business (e.g. a daily show, a trivia show, etc) and provide another way to make the business world more engaging.
Producing narrative serial podcasts that are short-run 10 episodes. These will be podcasts that tell a longer, interesting story though the "series" and be sponsored throughout by a single advertiser
Developing Brand Extensions -- podcasts that extend existing brands such as "Morning Brew", "Marketing Brew" etc.
Lessons learned from Launching a Podcast
Continue to doing/creating content that you like as opposed to solely relying on data and spreadsheets. Most of the success has come from when the content created was something we really liked.
Asking questions and receiving feedback has led to a lot of valuable moments when creating podcasts. When you put in the effort to ask for feedback, people tend to put in the effort to give it back.
Key Quote: "Creating what we like creates the best content, the best content is the best growth driver"
Who should start a podcast and what are the benefits?
For an individual:
Anyone who wants to start a podcast should start a podcast. The beauty is that anyone with a mic and create a podcast and distribute it to anyone essentially for free.
It's a great way to network, build your personal brand, and share conversations with friends.
For a business:
Podcasting is a great way to prove a concept and find an audience to grow the concept.
Its advertising is very effective. Many people skip video ads but very rarely do people skip audio ads because they are more authentic and embedded into the podcast.
Key Quote: "To build recurring revenue, there needs to be recurring conversation and podcasting is a fantastic way to do it."
What is the Future of Audio?
In the past decade, people have been so focused by Video Media that audio has a lot of space for technological advancement. For example, there's currently no way to engage with a podcast. It is the same content regardless of location, movement, etc. Technology can change that.
All forms of audio content will begin to start existing-- free, paid, exclusive etc.
Querying of audio similar to how we can query questions with Google.
For those who want to save a copy of the highlights in Notion, click here.
Thanks for reading! We appreciate the entire G&C fam.
And we’ll see you next week and as always…
Stay 💪 & 🧠,
Austin & Andy
Gritty & Curious #24 - Josh Kaplan, Head of Podcast Strategy @ Morning Brew