Halifax Company Helps Companies, Individuals Embrace A Growing Love For Podcasting
HALIFAX – If you have an amazing story you want to share with the world, it’s never been easier to produce and share it. With so many social media platforms bombarding our daily lives, however, it’s easy for your story to get lost in the noise, whether you are an individual online, or a company looking to market a brand.
One of the most effective ways to get your story out there in a professional, targeted, manner is to jump aboard the hot trend of podcasting. For years now, people with no on-air experience have been launching their own audio shows online. In many people’s lives, podcasting has made traditional radio obsolete.
Two Halifax businessmen, Jonathan Burns and Rhys Waters, have realized that many companies and people would love to share their stories through podcasting, but don’t know how to start. So, in 2019, they started Podstarter, a company that makes it difficult for you NOT to follow your podcasting dreams.
Depending on what expertise you need, Podstarter offers consultation services, marketing, producing, editing, finding the right audience, and even equipment you can take to record at home. The company even has its own studio in Halifax for those who don’t want to record from home.
“The gap seemed to be people were trying to launch podcasts with varying degrees of success, and we knew how to make a good podcast and how do you reach a specific audience and build that loyal following,” explained Burns.
At first, Waters and Burns envisioned Podstarter as being simply a consulting company for new podcasters. However, their very first client made it clear that there was a demand for technical help, so they quickly added editing and producing to their lists of services.
“Our first customer was so amazed at how quickly we could edit for them, they said, ‘we don’t want to learn how to edit a podcast, can you manage that for us?’” recalled Burns.
“Our clients said we don’t want to be editors or producers, so we started picking up pieces of those elements.”
Podstarter grew quickly as a business. This year, they will be working with 40-50 different shows, with the expectation that an average episode will get 5,000 to 25,000 hits. They have clients from all over the world including the U.K, New York, and Los Angeles.
While many of us think of podcasters as enthusiastic individuals who want to share a niche topic with a certain audience, many companies are starting their own shows to strengthen their brand. In fact, more than half of Podstarter’s clients are corporate ones.
“They are using podcasts as a platform that is conversational – it’s true, it’s transparent; it’s like you’re listening in on a private conversation,” he said.
“There is a fundamental shift in advertising that is moving away from just acquisition…There is a bit of a return to that branding exercise where companies are saying they need to draw a line in the sand and say, ‘this is what I stand for. This is the morality behind my business.’”
One of Podstarter’s most successful partnerships is with the jewelry chain Charm Diamond Centres. Together, the two companies came up with the podcast, The Canadian Love Map, which shares stories about love in all forms.
Moira MacDonald, who is Charm’s national marketing director and based out of Halifax, boasted about the quick success of The Canadian Love Map.
“We were only into episode five and we were number one in ‘new and noteworthy’ on Apple for podcasts on relationships,” said MacDonald. “So, I screenshotted my proud achievement that time. We gained a lot of new subscribers and followers just by having Apple promote us.”
Over the course of their show, Charm has been able to share stories of finding old love letters from the 1940s, a man searching for a beloved lost car, platonic love, and of course, romantic love.
MacDonald’s favourite episode was about an engaged couple named Alicia and Scott. The two couldn’t afford both a nice wedding and an engagement ring, so they chose to spend the money they had on their wedding. Towards the end of the show, the host asked the couple if they had any regrets. Scott said he regrets not proposing properly to Alicia, as he showed her a new ring provided by Charm.
There were a lot of tears, and the episode, with its big surprise ending, got a lot of shares. It got 90,000 views the first day that it dropped and got millions of views, shares, and reactions over the coming weeks.
The Canadian Love Map has shown that podcasting a 30-minute episode can be invaluable marketing because it allows a form of storytelling compared to a brief television ad.
“I think marketing has been storytelling for a long time,” said MacDonald. It’s trying to find those stories and sharing them without making it look contrived. And that’s one of the challenges when you have a 30-TV spot.”
“This has brought a little bit of personality to Charm and lets us talk about what we value and let us choose what kind of stories we think are love stories.”
Burns agrees that digital platforms like podcasts are changing the way a lot of companies do business. One of his corporate clients even replaced all webinars with a podcast after the success of just one episode.
It’s clear that listeners, particularly the younger generations, are attracted to the conversational tone of a podcast. While a TV or radio program can feel like someone is talking at you – a good podcast makes you feel included in the conversation.
“The ones that are successful are the ones not trying to drive to acquisition or to sell something. It’s a sharing of thoughts and ideas,” said Burns.
“The younger generations have a wonderful bullshit meter and a podcast is frank, it’s honest and you connect with the hosts or the guests and you feel like you’re a part of that conversation.”