Today in Digital Marketing - ANNOUNCEMENT: What's Ahead For This Podcast

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Friday, November 22nd. Today, big changes ahead for this podcast and its sibling newsletter. And today, I can finally share the details with you. As you may know, over the last few weeks, we've been soliciting your thoughts on what we can do to make our podcast and our newsletter even more valuable for you.

Starting point is 00:00:21 Many of you said you like getting all the news, but find it hard to keep up with five episodes a week. You've told us that for busy weeks, getting around to listening to that day's episode feels like yet another task on your already long to-do list. Some of you, most of you, myself included, find the ads on the free feed overwhelming. Many of you told us you wished we could do more boots on the ground stuff like case studies. And one guy named Dave said he didn't like the sound of my voice. Fair, but sorry, Dave, that's not changing. Pretty much the rest is though. Let's start with a bit of background. I started this podcast about four years ago. It was right when the ad market for

Starting point is 00:01:03 business podcasts really started to take off. And we benefited from that. We were profitable almost immediately. The podcast started to consume more of my time than the agency that I also run. Did I mention our main business is actually an engagement and moderation agency? Then two things happened. First, Apple changed how it downloads episode files to its popular podcast app. And that hit podcast download numbers hard, especially for daily shows with a big back catalog, just like ours. Our download numbers were slashed by more than two thirds pretty much overnight. Now, to be fair, the new numbers are probably indeed a more accurate representation of our actual listenership, but it was still a painful decline

Starting point is 00:01:54 because the second thing that happened was that our ad revenue, of course, fell along with this decline in download numbers. And right when things started to stabilize there, the tech bros unleashed AI on the world, and there are now tens of thousands of fully automated AI-generated podcasts that purport to do a daily rundown

Starting point is 00:02:16 of everything you could ever think of. And sure, they sound terrible. And sure, the AI doesn't know whether a bug on Meta's ad manager is a more important story than how Google's algorithm changed that day. And I like to think my dad jokes are better than its dad jokes. But the fact remains that these fake podcasts had started to swarm the landscape. And they're monetized, meaning ad campaigns are spread more thin and the supply and demand change has pushed CPMs way down.

Starting point is 00:02:49 All that to say, this daily podcast hasn't been profitable for some time now. And while I was happy to float it for a while to see if things would improve, I think there are enough signs that any improvement may be a ways off. Meanwhile, newsletters, on the other hand, have taken off. The ad market is strong. It's much easier to know when a subscriber joins and how much we paid for them if they came from an ad campaign. And frankly, newsletters take less time to produce than all the extra little stuff that goes into making a podcast. Our newsletter was essentially the podcast script script along with some images and links.

Starting point is 00:03:27 And while that was good to get us off and running at the beginning, it really limited us in terms of making it read like a daily industry newsletter. We wanted the newsletter to be easier to digest and like the podcast, not something people think of as a chore. So friends, here is what is changing starting next week.

Starting point is 00:03:50 First, the podcast will be going down to two episodes per week, Fridays and Tuesdays. On Fridays, you will get the week's wrap-up of all the digital marketing news that happened. Yes, that means a lot more stories, but they will be shorter. Somewhere between the lightning round stories that you've probably heard here and our previous length stories. I expect this weekly episode roundup will be a little longer than our daily ones have been,

Starting point is 00:04:14 maybe 15 or 20 minutes or so. But from what we've heard, you'd rather spend 20 minutes once a week catching up than eight or nine minutes, five times a week doing it. Some weeks will also do a big story at the top, whatever the most important development of that week was, which will give us more time to get you an interview with an expert or more analysis, or let's face it, more likely, more snark from me. We'll also be grouping stories by marketing discipline, all the SEO stories together, all the ad stories, all the social media stories together,

Starting point is 00:04:47 so your brain can more easily tune into what's relevant to you. That's Fridays. On Tuesdays, we'll be diving deeper into the topics you have been asking for. More case studies, more marketing science research, more step-by-step tutorials, more episodes of Behind the Ad, more like a traditional weekly marketing podcast you might hear elsewhere. But the difference is, ours will be edited. No rambling, no two hosts bantering on forever about in-jokes that only they understand and

Starting point is 00:05:19 aren't funny anyway. I should mention, this Tuesday episode will take us a couple of weeks to get ready for and to gear up for, so you may not see those Tuesday episodes for a few weeks. People on the free feed will get most of these episodes. Our premium podcast subscribers will also get bonus episodes and content that doesn't make it to the main feed. That's the podcast. Okay, second, the newsletter. It will remain daily. So if you really need a daily fix and don't want to wait until the Friday podcast roundup, that newsletter is still free and you can sign up by tapping the link at the top of today's show notes or going to todayindigital.com

Starting point is 00:05:58 slash newsletter. But it will change. Rather than being the script of the podcast, it will now have two sections. First, the daily big story, a much deeper dive into whatever the top story in the digital marketing world each day is. And second, like the new podcast, a series of short stories grouped by discipline of the developments of that day. We're also adding to each short story a section that calls out what that development means to the day-to-day work of digital day. We're also adding to each short story a section that calls out what that development means to the day-to-day work of digital marketers. And because the newsletter will have shorter stories, except for the first one, we think it should all fit within Gmail's stupid character limit, which kept cutting off many of our issues. We hope that this will make it easier to read, less of a time commitment, and more actionable for your job. It's my hope that this will make it easier to read, less of a time commitment, and more

Starting point is 00:06:46 actionable for your job. It's my hope that the podcast ad market will return, in which case we'll reach out to you and ask if you like it the way things are or would like to return to the daily episodes format. So those are the changes. Fewer podcast episodes per week, but less of a time commitment to listen. You'll still get all the news, plus more regular deep dive shows. And a refreshed daily newsletter that's easier to read, faster to digest, and still covers the most important stories every day, soon with more depth and richer analysis than you'll get elsewhere. All that starts next week.

Starting point is 00:07:24 I want to thank everyone who submitted their suggestions to us and for every one of you who subscribes. You know, I still consider this podcast more like a labor of love and my attempt to give back to the community than any revenue-producing business unit. And I will be grateful to hear your feedback of the new format once you've heard a few episodes.

Starting point is 00:07:44 And if you don't mind, bear with us for a couple of weeks as we find our footing with this new format and schedule. So that's it. Thank you for your time. And I'll see you next week.

Today in Digital Marketing - ANNOUNCEMENT: What's Ahead For This Podcast

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