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What I learned from Corey Layton (Content and Marketing Director at Whooshkaa) and Serpil Senelmis (Director at Written & Recorded)

Camille Monce —  October 12, 2020 — Leave a comment

“People decide if they’re going to stick with the podcast in the first minute or two; they will decide if they’re going to stay on or not.” – Corey Layton

“Word-of-mouth is the most dominant way that people get recommendations from podcasts; it’s all about your friends’ recommendations.” – Corey Layton

“Analytics are essential. One of the realms you can get some stats is via Apple analytics which will tell you about the time people spend listening to your podcast. Now if you make an hour and 20-minute podcast and your time spent listening is 20 minutes in, you’ve got a problem. Equally if people are skipping over certain segments that you think is really funny every week, you can see that skip and then you like, “Maybe I’m not so funny.” Via Spotify you can get an understanding of your demographics based on gender and age. It helps you understand where your stories are resonating most, and the sort of demographic that you need to continue to pitch at or grow. Analytics are key.” – Corey Layton

“Before you start your podcast you need to ask yourself, “What’s in it for my listeners, and what’s the problem that I’m trying to solve for them?” You need to really know your audience. Who are you talking to, and what do you want them to get out of it? You need to be passionate about the subject matter that you’re talking about, or at least have done research on the subject so you are engaged in the actual topic that you’re talking about. And you need to bring in great storytelling elements. So knowing your audience will help you shape your whole podcast that will dictate what themes you choose what topics you choose.” – Serpil Senelmis

“It sounds like it’s technically easy but there are a lot of considerations in making a podcast that’s of high quality. The thing that I can say that is the same or similar is other markets such as advertising or search engine optimization or website design. You can basically have a crack at all of these things. And in fact, we probably all have had a crack at all of these things. But once you call in the experts, you’re going to get better results. Because you are competing with radio stations, you are competing with newspapers, and you are competing with commercial brands that are pumping out podcasts. So to be able to play in their league, you need to think like they do.” – Serpil Senelmis

“The most important thing are the answers to the following questions: (1) who is your audience; and (2) why are you making this podcast? If you don’t have a purpose, what’s the point of it? You really need to know what is your purpose and who you are going to service with your podcast. If you can’t answer those two questions, go write a short story or do something else.” – Serpil Senelmis

“Who else is doing the same, and how can you do it differently? Given with how many podcasts exist, there’s so many people on their own tangents. If you’re just mimicking someone–which most often is, “I’m in X industry, I’m going to talk to ex-experts from this industry about their experience”–chances are that it’s already covered. Find your shtick.” – Corey Layton

“Peoples’ attention spans, particularly on social, are not there. The work we did with Facebook was about taking broader content, which are 60-minute discussions, and cutting them down to 20-minute podcast episodes, which were then accompanied by 60 to 90-second videos. Each content piece did different jobs. The video is there to give you an essence and to hook you in. The podcast is to sit alongside it. And if you wanted to dive deeper, it was there was an option. The differing mediums are complementary because they have different roles.” – Corey Layton

With thanks to

Serpil Senelmis is the co-director of content creation agency Written & Recorded. As a journalist for hire with decades of experience in radio, television, newspapers, and marketing, Serpil helps organisations to tell their story. She steps through the podcast creation process from concept to publication.

Corey Layton is the Content & Marketing Director with podcast hosting platform Whooshkaa, where he has led the production of successful podcasts from Mercedes Benz, Facebook and the City of Sydney. Corey warns of the pitfalls in podcasting and names the secret ingredient in reaching your audience.

About Masters Series by WeTeachMe

Masters Series is a show about inspiring entrepreneurs, creative thinkers, and visionary dreamers, and the stories behind how they built their companies.

Subscribe to show

Show brought to you by

Masters Series is presented by WeTeachMe.

Our strategic alliance partners: MYOB, SitePoint, and Entrepreneur’s Organization.

Our media partners: Startup Victoria and Digital Marketers Australia.

Our content partners: Written & Recorded.

The views expressed by the contributors on this show are linked websites that are not necessarily endorsed by the publisher.

Question of the day

What was your favourite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

In Analytics, Competition, Content, Customer Development, Data, Podcasting, Purpose, Strategy, What I Learned From..
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What I learned from Georgina Laidlaw (Copywriting Specialist) and Hannah Kallady (Digital Strategist with Ntegrity)

Camille Monce —  September 18, 2020 — Leave a comment

“Don’t let your calls-to-action fall apart. Calls-to-action are a great place to use conversational language because it makes people feel like they want to respond and interact.” – Georgina Laidlaw

“You need to dig deeper to communicate unique benefits, or to position the value you are presenting in a different way. You cannot get around this by “adding words” because it puts people off.” – Georgina Laidlaw

“Think of copywriting as storytelling. That might sound a bit lame because you might think that you’re “just selling a product”, but, it is really is a story that you are communicating with somebody.” – Hannah Kallady

“It’s very easy, especially in new businesses, to just want to create lots of content. But that’s not strategic and it’s not helpful. It’s important to have a strategy behind all the content you create.” – Hannah Kallady

“What’s that overarching story that you want to tell your users that’s also grounded in what matters to them, what they’re thinking about, and the stuff that keeps them up night, or the stuff that makes a their day hard and frustrating? Have you considered their dreams and the things that they want to achieve? Start there and figure out what that story is, then break it up, and figure out how it plays out across a range of channels.” – Hannah Kallady

“Even though we’re in a highly digital space, word-of-mouth is still one of the most important drivers for marketing. So you got to think about how can you can get your customers to tell other people about their experiences with you.” – Hannah Kallady

“It’s all about tailoring the story to what the user is really thinking and how they make decisions. What we’ll do is we’ll sit with our clients and map out that process. Customer journey mapping is one way of arriving at specific story that you should be telling.” – Hannah Kallady

“Scott Rosenberg from Intel  said that when you have a different tone of voice or a different brand across all your touchpoints, it makes for this semi-schizophrenic brand experience. The reason why it’s important you don’t do that is because consistency is the thing that builds trust.” – Hannah Kallady

“You can’t just assume people know what your tone of voice is. I’ve seen organizations, especially startups, think that “people get it; they know what our tone of voice is”. They don’t because your version is going to be very different to someone else’s. Making sure you actually document your tone-of-voice is important. Otherwise you can’t guarantee that you’re all on the same page.” – Hannah Kallady

“Think about how you describe things. Split test that as well. For example: “jobs” or “careers”? What happens if you change those words? What happens if you target different segments with slightly different language? Testing this as well is valuable.” – Georgina Laidlaw

With thanks to

Georgina Laidlaw is a copywriting specialist with the experience (and pedantry!) of an English teacher. Georgina works with brands like REA, Aconex and CyRise to help them express themselves clearly. She warns that the written word has no tone of voice which leaves it open to misunderstanding.

Hannah Kallady is a Digital Strategist with Ntegrity where she works with brands to get their words in the right place through communication strategies. Hannah believes strongly in the power of the story to connect and even stimulate our minds in ways we don’t quite understand.

About Masters Series by WeTeachMe

Masters Series is a show about inspiring entrepreneurs, creative thinkers, and visionary dreamers, and the stories behind how they built their companies.

Subscribe to show

Show brought to you by

Masters Series is presented by WeTeachMe.

Our strategic alliance partners: MYOB, SitePoint, and Entrepreneur’s Organization.

Our media partners: Startup Victoria and Digital Marketers Australia.

Our content partners: Written & Recorded.

The views expressed by the contributors on this show are linked websites that are not necessarily endorsed by the publisher.

Question of the day

What was your favourite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

In Advice, Branding, Content, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Customer Journey Mapping, Split Testing, Storytelling, Strategy, Tone-of-Voice, Trust, What I Learned From.., Women in Business
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