In this week’s episode, we talk to Adam McQueen, Content Marketing Manager at Klue and host of the Competitive Enablement Show, about how he grew and humanized their podcast from the ground up with very few resources.

You’ll learn more about how Adam and his team chose the concept and hook of the show, how they measure success and think about ROI, and how he successfully launched a live community during the early stages of the podcast.

Name: Adam McQueen

What he does: Content Marketing Manager at Klue

Even though Adam was new to the topic of competing in business, he took the podcast as an opportunity to bring in experts to learn from. Not only did this give him quality content to share with their audience, but it provided a level of education he could then use to confidently form his own unique point of view on the topic of competitive enablement. You can either be the expert or the guide to the expert and in this case, Adam was the latter.

As a host, you need to know how to facilitate the conversation and extract real examples. It’s also important to know when to poke and prod at the guests’ answers to uncover why they believe what they believe. This may also lead to healthy debates or contrarian points of view, which help to solidify the authenticity of the conversation and keep listeners engaged.

Canvas the market and take inspiration from the best podcasts you see in your space, but put your own spin on it. Be human and figure out what makes people want to listen to you over anyone else. No one follows a copycat.

You can take clips, snips, highlights, guest quotes, etc., and use those moments as fuel for your other marketing channels, like newsletters, socials, or blogs. Just because someone doesn’t have 30 minutes to listen to a full episode doesn’t mean they can’t still learn from you from a 60-second segment. This, in turn, might be a gateway to getting them to listen to the next episode.

Klue keeps a searchable internal repository of podcast content within Notion so their sales team can easily access clips and “SparkNotes” on specific topics covered on the show. They can then use this content to share insights with prospective customers and showcase the company’s POV.

Are you making a connection with the audience? Do they send you feedback on the show? Are they sharing your episodes on social media? It’s more impactful to have 100 people listening to your show who really care and engage with you than it is to have 5,000 downloads with little to no feedback.

It shouldn’t be a one-hour presentation or a siloed conversation between the host and guest. Instead, make it human. Open up a Zoom room and actually interact with the faces on the screen. Have conversations, and let people chime in. That’s where the magic of community is built.

Oftentimes, B2B content can feel a bit repetitive. It seems like when you scroll through your feed, everyone is talking about the same things or sharing the same style clips. Don’t fall into the trap of “sameness”. Ask yourself, “What can I do, even with a podcast clip, that’s different than everything else out there?” Continue to iterate and improve your content until you find your unique voice and approach.

Even if your numbers are modest to start, it’s important to analyze why certain episodes get higher downloads than others. Is it your hook? Is it your episode title? Is it your guest? Is it because of a specific clip you shared on social? Was it the way it was distributed to your email list? Learn from these tactics so you can apply them to future episodes and grow your podcast.

You’re not going to get your podcast right from the start. You’re going to make mistakes. You’ll likely cringe when you listen back to your episode 01. But the key is having support from the top to take those creative risks, test different strategies out, fail your way through a few of them, and learn from it all so you can make a bigger and better show.

Identify who your audience is, the problems they face, or the questions they need answers to, and go out there and create a show that helps them work through these challenges. If you’re not giving your audience the value they’re looking to get from you, your show will inevitably fail, regardless of the level of production or guest roster.