Data-Driven Podcast Growth: Fatima Zaidi on Engagement and Monetization

Data-Driven Podcast Growth: Fatima Zaidi on Engagement and Monetization

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to episode 168 of the business development podcast. And on today's expert guest interview, we welcome back Fatima Zaidi, a leader in Canadian podcast development. And she is going to talk to us about why we should continue to consider starting podcasts. In 2025 and beyond, stick with us. You are not going to want to miss this episode.

Intro: The Great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal. And we couldn't agree more. This is the business development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world.

You'll get expert business development, advice, tips, and experiences. And you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs. And business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business brought to you by capital business development, CapitalBD.ca let's do it. Welcome to the business development podcast, and now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome to episode 168 of the business development podcast. And today it's an absolute pleasure to welcome back Fatima Zaidi with her extensive experience in media tech and entrepreneurship. Fatima brings a wealth of knowledge and insights that continue to inspire and inform our audience. In episode 30, Your Business Needs a Podcast, Fatima shared invaluable wisdom on the power of podcasting as a strategic tool for business growth, captivating our listeners with her profound understanding of the industry.

As the founder and CEO of Quill Inc. and co host, Fatima has established herself as a trailblazer in the world of corporate audio production and podcast analytics. Her remarkable achievements include multiple top 30 under 30 recognitions and prestigious awards such as the Veuve Clicquot Bold Future Award.

Moreover, Fatima's dedication to social impact is evident through her role as co chair of the Tech for Sick Kids Council and Sick Kids Hospital, where she's spearheading efforts to raise funds for critical medical infrastructure and groundbreaking data and AI projects. In addition to her entrepreneurial endeavors, Fatima is a sought after speaker, commentator, and educator, sharing her insights on global stages and media platforms.

Her commitment to empowering diverse voices in entrepreneurship, particularly those of women and BIPOC founders, reflects her unwavering passion for driving positive change in the podcast industry. Fatima, it's amazing to have you back.

Fatima Zaidi: Pleasure to be back and thank you so much for that wonderful and kind intro.

I was actually laughing to myself when I was listening to it because just recently I reworked my bio because it still says the 30 under 30 awards and I'm like 35 now so it's been a while and I made it a little bit more relevant updated the most recent awards. Like the Canadian business innovation and the DMZ awards.

But for those of you who aren't listening, I am no longer under 30 for transparency purposes. And sometimes you just get into the habit of not touching your bio and then realize, well, it's five years later and those words are now no longer relevant.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, at this point, you're still winning awards every year, so you just got to keep me informed, and we'll make sure that we get them updated year over year for you.

Fatima Zaidi: Well, I appreciate that, and it's a pleasure to be back. Congrats on episode 30, and what is this, episode 120?

Kelly Kennedy: 168.

Fatima Zaidi: Yes. I mean, like, I don't know how you managed to pump out so much content in such a short period of time, but kudos to you because it's a marathon, not a sprint. So I, I really, it's, it's a testament to you and your team on recognizing how important it is to put out content frequently and consistently.

Kelly Kennedy: I appreciate that. And I always laugh when I hear that because you know what, it was just naive Kelly thinking, Oh yeah, I can pump out two a week. That can't be that hard. Yeah, it was a lot harder than I thought. But I also recognized once I started, Oh crap, this is my schedule. We're just going to figure it out and make it work.

And we did. And it's been absolutely amazing.

Fatima Zaidi: Amazing. Well, I'm so glad to hear that. And for those of you who are listening it's about consistency and it's about showing up and sticking to that same posting cadence and, and it's not for the faint of heart. It's a lot of work, a lot of resources and big time commitment and super rewarding, but I think that's one of the challenges of the industry is there's so many podcasters that.

Start enthusiastically with a great idea. I think there's 3 million podcasts now and only 18 percent of them are active shows. And I think this is the reason why shows become inactive so quickly. Folks not understanding the time commitment and resources and effort it takes to keep up with producing content frequently.

Kelly Kennedy: Totally, totally. And you know, it evolves over time to like, people don't realize when they start a show that show is going to become likely something completely different by 100 episodes later. And, you know, the business development podcast has really stayed in that business development vein. But we've really taken an entrepreneurship spin as well with with our guests and the education that we bring.

And so we've become a very well rounded business show. But we actually didn't start out with that in mind, we really started out just how can we give great business development advice.

Fatima Zaidi: I think, I mean, as all good shows evolve over time, the content evolves. You see how the folks are responding to your content.

You use the data to level up editorially, expand your horizon. So I think, I think you're on the right track. And I've listened to your show in quite a few episodes and I have to say it's it's great content.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, thank you, Fatima. I appreciate it immensely. You know, what initially drew me to you is when I was starting my podcast, obviously the first thing that most podcasters start to figure out once they decide they're going to do a show is, who the heck am I going to host with?

And then we start learning what that world is all about. And being Canadian, You know, I love Canada and I wanted to make sure that whatever I was doing, wherever possible, that I could support my fellow Canadians. And honestly, trying to find anything in the podcast space that is Canadian is damn near impossible.

And after a little bit of digging, and it still wasn't easy, I found Co host.

Fatima Zaidi: Yes, we I believe are the only Canadian software out there that are catering to the podcasting industry. And, you know, it's, it's, it's interesting to see how much talent and DNA we have on the production side. But nobody really wants to touch the technology side of the business.

And I understand why launching a product requires a lot of capital. And generally speaking, Canadian investors are very Risk averse and traditional in terms of marketing and Canada has not been an early adopter in terms of investing in podcasting funds and ad spend. And so typically the organizations that can get VC backing for softwares are in the U.

1. and that's why all of our competitors are in the U. S. We were in a bit of a unique position in that I launched with an agency first that took off after the pandemic. And so. We were making, you know, really good revenue that we could fund the product without bringing in external capital. But generally speaking, it is very hard to scale a software product without external funding.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. And, and like, and we'll get into it. And I want to ask you so much more on this, but for our fans and our listeners who are hearing you for the very first time, can you give us, you know, an introduction to who is Fatima Zaidi?

Fatima Zaidi: Yeah, absolutely. So I am Fatima. I'm the founder and CEO of Quill as well as co host.

Quill is a full service production agency. We specialize in creating branded podcasts for Fortune 500 brands, and we are also an agency that specializes in audience growth, analytics, and measurement. Through the work that we were doing at Quill, working with clients like PWC and McKinsey and Expedia, we realized that we were having a really hard time getting access to the data that we needed to really scale our audiences and ensure that we were reaching the right audiences through the marketing work that we were doing.

And so we went out and we built Co host, which is an analytic software catered exclusively to professional podcasters to allow them to identify demographic and psychographic information of their listeners age, gender, household income, interest, social media platforms what companies are listening to your show.

And, you know, if you think of Google analytics or SEMrush. Really similar to that, we are now equipping professional podcasters with the tools that they need to not only grow their audiences, level up their content editorially, as well as you know, prioritize which marketing efforts are going to work for them, which helps with monetization and advertising.

So, all in all, to say we're a technology company that also provides production services.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes, and you guys are really, really unique. And the thing that kind of set you apart when I was initially starting this show was it wasn't just that you were Canadian. It was that you were geared towards branded business podcasts.

And there's not a lot of companies who make that claim.

Fatima Zaidi: No, I mean, I think there's there's a few and we have such a great relationships with them. There's Pacific Content. They're amazing. They produce such great podcasts. I would say definitely not as well versed on the audience growth side, but in terms of production, like they are incredible.

There's Jar Audio. They're actually customers of co hosts and just such a wonderful team based out of Vancouver. And then there's in terms of other Canadian companies, there's also. I think that, I think there's pod fly based out of Montreal, but you're right there, there, there just isn't a lot of companies that are specializing in the branded space, at least not well, recognizably.

And I think the other challenges the market size, I mean, brands are now starting to really adopt pod fly. Like, you know, audio content shows as a part of their marketing mix. But until very recently, it was very much an education. We would get on calls with brands and, you know, they would be like, why podcasting we're competing with digital marketing budgets.

So for every dollar they're putting into a podcast. A digital ad or a Google ad or an Instagram ad, they can see how it impacts their bottom line. Whereas podcasting, we have such a long way to go in terms of measurement. We weren't working on it in terms of the work we're doing with co hosts and research studies and partnership with sounds profitable.

But I would say that we haven't been thinking about podcasting and ROI data driven way until very recently. And so it was very much trying to justify to brands why they should create new budgets. for podcasting, which is a very new tactic. And so I would say we've started seeing more players come in to this space in the last year or so, but for the longest time, other than the three agencies I mentioned, nobody really wanted to touch that face because it was such an undertaking to convince folks to take the lead.

Kelly Kennedy: It is, you know, but we've, we've monetized this show and we did it on our own. And what I recognized really early on was. A business podcast is completely different. You can't measure us the same way that you measure a comedy show, or the latest scary show, or the latest true crime. They are in a completely different demographic.

The neat thing about business shows is that most people listening are people With funds, they're leaders, they're entrepreneurs, they're executives. They're a completely different demographic than your everyday Joe. And even though most business shows, we don't, you know, we have to work a lot harder to get those download numbers because we're just not a show for everybody.

The people that we are there for are people that are looking to make buying decisions.

Fatima Zaidi: Yeah, I mean, I think I think you you've made a really good point in that it is such an interesting case study. A business podcast is about creating original content that allows you to tell your brand story and create more of an intimate connection with your listeners beyond the day to day of your service offerings.

It's not a sales pitch, but organically, it is a sales pitch. Pitch. It's getting, you know, top of mind being topical and getting to sort of control the narrative. I would say that when it comes to branded podcasts as well, I think it's been really interesting for us because at least the type of clients that we work with, which is exclusively Fortune 500 on the quill side of the business, not the product side, folks are less concerned about the monetization piece.

Sure. And more concerned about bringing in the right listeners and using it as a thought leadership and brand awareness. play for that purpose. I would say it is performed really, really well. And now we're starting to incorporate monetization into our larger strategy.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, with the level of companies that you guys are primarily producing shows for, you're right.

They have product lines that it makes way more sense for them to just drive more interest too. But for, for some of the smaller companies that I'm seeing launching shows, thought leadership, you know, maybe they're, you know, 50 people or less or whatever. For them. To do this over and over and over again without there being some way to pay for that production cost and pay for that time, it becomes a hard pill to swallow and we're seeing a lot of shows dropping off for that reason because they're looking at it as I'm dumping everything into this, we're putting out, you know, let's say 20 hours a week if you're putting two shows in a week and we're not getting that ROI, we're not getting anything back from it that we can easily measure.

And so I think it's By allowing small business shows to be able to get sponsors, to be able to advertise, it really does give them just that little bit more incentive to keep that show going.

Fatima Zaidi: Well, this is why I think it's so important that the industry as a whole start focusing on utilizing podcasting in a data driven way for lead generation.

That is why we launched our B2B analytics tool. We show you a list of companies that are listing. And then an interesting use case is we currently work with a client that is smaller and I love working with the smaller organizations because they are very lead generation and sales focused, which is great because it allows me to get into the weeds of them and find a way to.

You know, poll podcasting is a tactic that prioritizes lead generation. So an example would be this, this client, the smaller client was very much interested in lead generation. So we exported a list of all the companies that were listening to his show, helped him integrate it into a CRM tool to identify two touch points.

One, how many people in your CRM tool are listening to your show as an. Added sort of data point. And then the second, how many qualified leads are listening to your podcast that are not in your CRM tool. Once we sort of identify those user groups and segments, we then look at the qualified list and discuss who we want to bring on to the show from a guest sourcing perspective, like interview as a subject matter expert and build a relationship with them, marketing swaps and marketing campaigns or features.

Utilizing a lot of that data to tailor the content for the industries that are tuning in, working with their sales teams to discuss additional touch points that they can have with these folks outside of the podcast. The conversion rates are looking really good for lead generation as it pertains to podcasting.

Folks are doing enough to actually measure after listening to your podcast, how many of those folks then go on to become Customers vendors partners, but we're starting to do that work now, and we're starting to see really high conversion rates. So very similar to what zoom and phone lead feeder for website traffic.

We are doing for podcasting traffic. So we think it needs to be a bit of a mindset switch, which is if you use social ads for. And they use content generation for sales and lead generation. Why could you not do that for podcasting?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Well, I can tell you that, you know, all of all the sponsors we've had on our show so far, 75 percent of them have been fans of the show.

Fatima Zaidi: Well, then there you go.

Kelly Kennedy: Right.

Fatima Zaidi: 75 percent conversion rate.

Kelly Kennedy: It's huge. It's huge, right? And you don't realize the community that you're building when you do a show. It is massive. It is so much bigger than I even imagined, Fatima. You know, when you're measuring your co host, you know, your weekly numbers or whatever else and your Spotify numbers and wherever you're at during the week or how many followers you have, it is, it's nothing compared to the real, amount of people listening.

I was blown away when we got the Spotify year in review back in October and I had no idea. We were a number one show for 7, 500 people in our very first year. I think we were a top five for around 17, 000 and we were, I believe, a top 10 for around 24, 000 people.

Fatima Zaidi: Amazing.

Kelly Kennedy: But that's just, it's crazy because you would never believe it, right?

Like you, when you're just looking at your day to day metrics or whatever else, and when you're only at like 500, 600, wherever you're at for that day. It doesn't make you or your followers how many, how many people actually follow the show. It is just a fraction of the amount of people actually listening to your show.

And I think that's important for everybody to remember. It's a lot bigger than you think.

Fatima Zaidi: Well, I mean, even if it's like 100 listeners that you brought in that month, imagine 100 people in your living room. Yeah, a lot of people. That's a lot of people to bring in organically if you're not investing in ad spend.

And, you know, I would say that In the 1980s, it was a phone number for your business. In the 1990s, it was website. And then in the 2000s, it was social media. I, I fully am confident that the next five to 10 years is like the wave of audio and everyone consumes content in different ways. Some people prefer reading, some people prefer watching a video, some people prefer listening.

And it has been a market that has been untapped for so long that we haven't fully utilized its potential. But I think that now as we're starting to. To see like data and studies come out on the quantitative benefits of how a podcast can impact your bottom line. No, BBC did a study where they produce some, some really like favorable metrics.

And I remember 1 in particular resonated with me, which is a 14 percent increase. And purchasing intent for your, for your business, 14 percent is a lot. If you're a salesperson, like those are pretty compelling numbers when you're thinking about TV ads or other forms of content. So I would say that if you are active on social, if you have a blog or a content channel, if you are producing video content, there is no reason why you should dabble or at the very least test out audio format shows as a part of your content mix.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, I would agree completely. You know, I said it kind of, you know, when I started this show that I think and in our last show, even that I think the future really is, is that, you know, CEOs, founders, leaders are going to have to have that outward voice and whether they do it via YouTube, whether they do it via, you know, what, some type of video format or whether they're doing a podcast, they're going to need to have some type of outward face from this point forward.

What's your view on that?

Fatima Zaidi: Yeah, I mean, I would, I would definitely agree. And I think it's a really great way for you to create a human connection between you and your employees and your stakeholders. Oftentimes, founders and CEOs are not accessible to the rest of their team outside of their leadership executive team.

So we've seen a big trend in a lot of organizations reaching out this year and last year to do more internal podcasts where they can Sort of conquer that bridge between, like, their staff and the executive leadership team to communicate, you know, the projects that they're working on the initiatives, replacing town halls, HR, onboarding processes and telling their side of the story to create that human connection.

I said this so many times, but like. We see all of these amazing brands, Amazon, Google, McDonald's, but there's no like emotional connection to them. There's no customer loyalty per se. But when you listen to their podcasts, it creates such a human connection and it really helps from a retention standpoint as well.

The example that I always like to share with folks is Ben and Jerry's example. It, you know, in our house, huge ice cream consumers purchase ice cream four to five times a week. Not the healthiest habit, but when we go, when we used to go to the grocery store, we would purchase, you know, whatever was on sale or, you know, whatever sort of, you know, we were interested in until I listened to the podcast episode with the two founders of Ben and Jerry's.

They were on how I built this. And I got to hear about the social activism work that they were doing and how they approached. Their business in a very mission driven way. And they went from Ben and Jerry's, this random ice cream brand that I never think twice about, and we'll occasionally buy when they're on sale to, oh my gosh, this is a company that I want to support because people are not conscious about social mission driven organizations.

And you want to align yourself with the companies. that you respect and who have the same shared values as you. Our house now, for the last two years, exclusively buys Ben and Jerry's. And that is the power of podcasting.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, you really get to connect with people in a completely different way. And I think that's what people are kind of missing.

And I think that that's what's going to be important with business moving forward, is that People want to connect, they want to feel good about what they are doing, what they are buying, who they are working with, and a podcast or some type of outward face allows you to generate that relationship.

Fatima Zaidi: Yeah, exactly.

Like, it, that 100 percent is, if you're looking to create a community, you're looking to create Reach your stakeholders, build an intimate relationship with them bring a little human aspect to the connection, then podcasting is the right strategy for you. If you are looking to reach mass millions of people, you don't care who you're reaching, it's about, you know, just targeting as many people as possible, then podcasting isn't the right tactic for you.

You're better off investing in digital ads, out of home campaigns, PR. So I think it ultimately comes down to what your business objectives are. And there's a time and a place and a tactic that serves those needs.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, totally, totally. You know, last time we talked video, I know me and you shared the same opinion on video, at least at that time, where my view was, look, I'm talking to executives, we're busy, we're listening while we're riding in the car, we're listening while we're working, we're listening while we're doing yard work.

But either way, we're listening while we're doing something else. But we are seeing a huge shift into video podcasting. And I'm wondering why? What is your view on it?

Fatima Zaidi: You know, I think it's a combination of a few things. I think one, it is like I said earlier, everyone consumes content in different ways.

Some people prefer that visual screen to help the content come to life from a storytelling standpoint, and so they care less about the flexibility of being able to drive to work and listen to a podcast, and more so they want to be able to visualize the conversation that's happening. And I think that it's important to target it.

Okay. different folks on different platforms based on who your audience is. So YouTube, for example, makes a lot of sense. If you are reaching, let's say a younger demographic or a younger audience, they're generally on YouTube. I'm not a YouTuber, but I'm like older millennial professional, more so in the audio camp, I like to consume content through audio.

So I would say my, my, my thoughts are still my thoughts still stand, which is YouTube makes sense depending on the demographic that you're trying to reach. I also think YouTube makes sense based on the data that we're collecting. So co host has a feature where we show you which social media platforms your listeners are on.

And so if we see that they're on LinkedIn and Twitter and Instagram, then we're not touching YouTube. There's no reason to be on YouTube with the video series or length audiogram. But if we identify that like 70 or 80 percent of the listeners are on YouTube, then of course it makes sense to prioritize a video series.

So I think it's less about should we do video because it's so glamorous and you know. It's more so about approaching podcasting in a data driven way to see where your audience lives and who they are and then tailor your marketing activities accordingly. We have seen a huge, huge uptake of clients wanting to try video and.

I still stand by it. Engagement rates are not what they are for audio. There's a 94 percent completion rate for audio versus 12 percent completion for, for video 30 minutes or longer. And so I think if you're going to invest your time and resources into creating a video podcast, which is more expensive and more labor intensive, you need to have a use case for why.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, I agree. And I think the other side of it too is when you are looking for investment, when a time comes when you are ready to monetize your show, in my mind, it makes a lot more sense to be able to show them the listener numbers rather than the video viewers that you get on YouTube have so many clips, right?

Because you know, you know, the people that are coming back, And listening to your show week over week, month over month, year over year. They're not going anywhere and they are listening to the whole thing. And you were building that real connection with them. Whereas with video, I still feel like it's a bit of a passing connection.

It's just something for the moment.

Fatima Zaidi: And I think like generally depending on who it is that you're trying to reach, we want to be entertained and educated and inspired while we're also being productive. I mean, if we had an hour to sit down and watch a video podcast, You have a lot of competition. Like you're competing with Netflix, Amazon prime frame, crave HBO, Apple podcasts, Hulu, the world is your oyster.

Movies, TV shows, documentaries, limited series, YouTube videos, music videos. Like there is so much video content out there. I think I recently learned that there are, there is 500 hours of content being uploaded every minute. And there's 30 plus million YouTube channels.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow.

Fatima Zaidi: In comparison to that, there's only 3 million podcasts and only 18 percent of them are active.

So like, look at the, look at the competition numbers, look at how unsaturated podcasting is despite what some people like to think that is a myth. We are very much in the beginning of the hype cycle, not the end. And think about how much video content is out there. Why would somebody listen to your show versus Watch a TV show or a movie and a documentary or X, Y, Z.

I'm not saying that they wouldn't choose your show. I'm just saying that you're opening up yourself to a much larger competitive market.

Kelly Kennedy: I love the way that you phrased that it's about the use case of the time, right? You're like, if they have the time to be watching YouTube, they also have the time to be watching TV or watching.

anything else. And, but with a podcast, they can be listening to your podcast while also doing something else, making it much more palatable.

Fatima Zaidi: They can also be reading because you need to physically be present and looking at something. So it's not just video. Actually, if you think about it, they can be reading, they can be reading articles, they can be on social media platforms.

They can be, it's. Literally virtually any activity where their time has to be undivided with video. Your time has to be undivided with audio. It does not. You can be engaged in another activity. And by doing so, it increases engagement rather than hurts engagement. So when you know those stats and you're not trying to reach a younger demographic seems a little non intuitive to me as to why you would want to spend double the investment and time to create something that doesn't serve your target audience.

But I think that this is oftentimes. Something that clients have to try and really understand in terms of seeing the metrics and numbers. So we will produce a video show for you, but we'll be very transparent on if we think it is the right strategy for you. And I think there's been so many studies done.

The proof is in the data. I mean, video podcasts just don't have the same engagement rates.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, I would agree and I will say like from standing right here, we've only just started integrating clips just for the teaser of the show. We do not do anything more than a clip to show the guest and kind of talk to the highlight of the show.

And then we point them towards the audio show because to me, I don't see the value in watching, you know, me and you talk for friggin an hour. Like the reality is. It doesn't matter what matters is the content that me and you talked about. And so if we need to do a clip to kind of show people who it is and an enticing moment, then sure we're in.

But you're right. I don't think the value is there. And we have had amazing growth despite being an audio show. And I don't think it's despite. I think it's honestly because that's what people want when podcast.

Fatima Zaidi: Yeah, no, definitely. And you know, it's interesting because I want to make something clear to anyone who's listening to this show.

I am a huge advocate and proponent of creating bite sized video content for social channels. Bite sized video content actually has much higher engagement rates than audiographs and static posts. So it's not that I'm saying you should not dabble in video. It's just that video has a purpose. So do you necessarily need to go out and produce a full length video episode?

Maybe not. Do I think that you should invest in a video trailer and teaser and bite size assets for social content? Absolutely. Video is great. And we, for all of our shows have some video assets to go along with the audio. I think the question here is. Do you need to be on YouTube or on another platform as a full length video series?

And I think that that might be up to debate.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, I would agree. I would agree. And I think, I think you're right. I think, you know, you don't need to. And one of the other things that I want to chat to you is, think about your production time. Especially if you are trying to produce this in house or you are producing it yourself.

Producing a full video, making sure that all the edits are done right. And then probably also doing an audio show, because if you're going to do a full video, why don't you just cut out the audio at the same time?

Fatima Zaidi: It's two shows.

Kelly Kennedy: It's twice the work, if not more.

Fatima Zaidi: Yeah. And video editing is much harder than audio editing.

And to get the audio to match the video, like you're essentially creating two podcasts and double the work and double the time commitment. And then because they're two separate platforms, YouTube is video and audio is only audio. You're also. Doubling your marketing efforts.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, and I would argue that I would rather put out twice the content than have video.

Fatima Zaidi: Yeah, it's, you know, I think it's, it's such a, this is like such a hot topic. It's like AI and podcasting where I think the opinions are sort of across the spectrum and I can, you know, have a million opinions till the cows come home, but ultimately I think it comes down to the data that we're seeing. And so approach podcasting in a data driven way.

And you can't go wrong. And so video makes sense if your audiences are on YouTube or video, other video platforms, otherwise you're probably better off sticking to audio shows for those engagement metrics.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, I would agree. I would agree. What are the metrics that matter, Fatima? You know, we got all these people starting shows and they're like, okay, like we're getting some downloads.

We're seeing our weekly downloads. We're seeing, oh, what's the unique, unique downloads. And people are like, what is all this? What, what even matters? What's what should they be tracking to make sure that they are growing week over week?

Fatima Zaidi: Downloads is such an arbitrary term because as an industry, we can't even seem to agree on the definition of a download.

And so the fact that we. Place such an emphasis on a metric that we're not even sure what it entails or can't seem to agree on it as an industry is, is really interesting to me. And so when it comes to analytics and measurement for podcasting, I would say it's not that you don't want to look at your unique listener account.

You obviously do. And I know everyone will. So there's no point saying don't focus on those metrics, but alongside those metrics, looking at your engagement rates. So cohost provides show consumption rate as well as episode consumption rate to show where the drop offs are happening and what your listening time is.

Podcasting is in a unique position where we can use listening time as an engagement metric to measure the cost per minute of human attention, which is a metric that is. never been done across any other content medium. And so those are the metrics I hear about the consumption rates, loyal listeners, drop off rates.

Are they staying on for future episodes? Are they participating in Spotify polls and other sort of engagement tactics? And are you building a consistent community around your show that not only feel connected to you, but they feel connected to the content as well as the other guests? So that is the number one thing for podcasting.

It's about building a community around your show. Aka you should be focusing on the community engagement metrics along with that. It's about making sure that you're reaching the right listener. If you are going to spend so much time creating a show and marketing it do not want to know if you are reaching a bunch of bots or 16 year olds that aren't qualified to be interacting with your brand or your podcast.

And so that's why I think it's so important to have a handle on the demographic and psychographic metrics. Metrics of your listeners. So it's not even just about how they're responding to your content, but who are these folks? And is this the audience that you intended on creating a show for? And so I would say looking at things like age and, you know, household income, and do they have pets and families?

Are they on social channels? Which social channels? What are their interests and hobbies and lifestyle? Looking at really that profile and making sure that you're You're hitting the mark in terms of who it is that you're trying to reach. And if you're not, that's great because it's an opportunity for you to take your show to the next level by caring less about your total download count, because that download count can be so inflated based on who you're reaching and what tactics you're reaching, but more so focusing on bringing in the right listeners.

So instead of bringing in a thousand people that week, if you even just bring in 50 qualified listeners, that's a win in my books.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah. And I think that's the other side that like people struggle with trying to understand how do we measure success. And I would really love to know, you know, when you're working with your top brands, what are some of the metrics that you guys are looking for to say, yep, we're having success here?

Fatima Zaidi: I would say being in the 70 and 80th percentile in terms of listing time and consumption rate is a big one for us. Like if people are dropping off in the first five to 10 minutes of your show, that qualifies as a download and a listen, but it doesn't speak to the success of your content. So making sure that your average consumption rate is significant.

I think industry metrics are anything above 60 percent is considered to be good. And I think anything above 75 to 80 percent is considered to be excellent. So really you know, it doesn't have to be an overnight jump, but really making sure that you are consistently trying to get folks to stay on until the end by playing around with your content.

I also think it's, it's really interesting, but approaching your podcasts in a data driven way to tailor your content. So, for example, we have a client right now who only interviews founders and through our user profile, we identified that 90 percent of his listeners had expressed interest or one of their interests is healthy living fitness.

And exercise. And so for this season, we decided to change it up. And we only invited speakers who have created companies in the health and wellness space overnight skyrocketed the average consumption rate across the show and all the episodes, because we're using the data that we're collecting to tailor our content as well as tailor our marketing strategies as well.

And so I think That will really help you bring in the right listener, but also focus on the right metrics because the point should be creating really great content that resonates with your audience and target demographics. So again, really monitoring the demographic and psychographic information to ensure it's hitting the listener profile and the ideal listener that you're trying to reach.

That is a huge success KPI for us. And then I would say. The rest really comes down to business objectives. If, you know, a client is trying to reach a specific type of company organization for lead generation, then, you know, exporting that list and see who's actually tuning in. If you know, I, I would say that I'm not opposed to using your download increase or listener increase count measured growth episode over episode, season over season to get an idea of like, you know, is the growth like this is the growth like this?

Is it declining? And so I think. Success can look so differently based on the company that you're working with. But if you are focusing on the right listener and engagement metrics, then you're on the right path.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, I think another good measure that we like to use as well is even though, like I said in the beginning, your follower count is not an actual representation of how many people listen, watching that drop off number or that increase number, as long as that number is steadily going up and you're not having drop off, I like to use that as a good measure that we're winning.

There's not a lot of like good measures, but the way that I kind of look at it, as long as people are not leaving the show, that's probably a good sign.

Fatima Zaidi: Totally. And then also creating a space and opportunities for your listeners to engage with you. We do a lot of giveaways. We participate in Spotify polls.

We do brand list studies where we survey listeners. We have like feedback boxes for guests to tune in to, you know, provide us with suggestions, ask us questions. Questions that we can then bring up on the shows, social media platforms where they can engage and interact with your content. So that's the other thing, just like creating opportunities for your audiences to participate in this journey with you, I think can really help take your show to the next level from a content perspective, like getting them to provide you with insights on what they would like to see.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, totally, totally. And since we talked about social media, let's just get right into marketing. Marketing is freaking hard. And I would say with podcasting, trying to figure out what avenues to go down is, has been a trial and error experience for us. We've eventually just decided that we're going with Spotify advertising, more so because I don't trust half the other stuff out there that you, like you said, it's not bots.

Fatima Zaidi: Yes. I mean, this is something that I'm notoriously famous for speaking about the inauthenticity of downloads as it pertains to a lot of the listing platforms. Spotify ad studio is definitely very authentic. You are reaching the right listeners and they have amazing targeting metrics. So you can really get granular in terms of who you're reaching.

I would say my challenge with Spotify ad studio and there's pros and cons to every platform. My one challenge is that there the conversion rates are not once what they used to be in terms of. When I was using Spotify ad studio in 2020, when they, 2019, when they first came out and they converted much better in terms of the click through rate.

The other challenge that I have with Spotify ad studio is they'll show you the number of people that clicked on your ad, but they won't show you the number of people who clicked on your ad and then downloaded or listened to your show. And when you can't find a download metric. Through a tactic that you've run, it makes it really hard to justify spend because you don't know if the listeners are just clicking on the ad or if they're actually listening to your show.

And so that's been a bit of a measurement challenge for me because I know that that is something that Spotify can provide and they choose not to. And then it makes you wonder, are they not providing it because the numbers just don't look good? But I think the reason that Spotify isn't providing it is these platforms, these other platforms, those that we shall not name, they have created this false.

Narrative that you can put in a thousand dollars into this platform and get 20, 000 downloads overnight, which then puts Spotify in a position where it's like the hundred listeners they bring in for a thousand dollars spend seems so low, not realizing that actually that seems more on brand. And that actually seems more accurate because it's very expensive to bring in the right listener.

And so if someone's promising you 20, 000 downloads overnight, like podcasting is a marathon, not a sprint. That's right. I think we stand here and tell you, these are five things that you can be doing for overnight success. Because there isn't, if you would like to be successful with a show, you need to commit.

You need to create good content frequently and consistently and invest in some paid organic owned and earned tactics. And over time you will see the momentum come through. But if you're looking for instant gratification, digital ads is the way to go. This is not the right industry for you. And so it's about changing the mindset that actually The hundred listeners that you get from the thousand dollars you spend on Spotify is more accurate, legitimate, and authentic than the 20, 000 listeners you're going to get through this random platform that is actually, because we're in a unique position, we produce shows and run campaigns.

We also have a hosting platform in a prefix so we can see the legitimacy of the downloads coming in from these platforms. A lot of them are bots, unused, unverified user agents, unverified IPs, people that are not qualified downloads.

Kelly Kennedy: Why has that happened? Is it just because of this drive for like to hit your million downloads?

Fatima Zaidi: Well, that's it. It's a vanity metric. People need numbers to look good for advertising monetization purposes to their executive team. It's just like compound effect. It's like the butterfly effect. Like everyone's sort of on this bandwagon for millions of downloads, millions of downloads. They don't almost care about the authenticity of the downloads.

I think we're starting to care more as an industry. We just sponsored podcast movement in LA. And we're going next week to the podcast show in London, as well as DC in August. And a lot of the conversations we're having on our stages is this, the authenticity of downloads. And I encourage everyone who's tuning in to read Alicia's article in bloom or Bloomberg.

I think it was a couple months old about being very wary of platforms and folks who promise you overnight success. And I would say that we're starting to pay attention to this a little bit more and starting to pay more attention to the right listeners. But the folks that are going to see success with their podcast long term are the ones who realize it's a marathon, not a sprint.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. And I think those numbers come like we're seeing, we're seeing our numbers increase significantly. I'm sure if you've checked my numbers, which you have the backside access to do so, our numbers are growing all the time. And it is, it is just true to the The time we've been in the business now, right?

Like we're at 15 months in, we've produced consistently two shows a week. We've been getting amazing guests, such as yourself. We have great conversations. We give great advice.

Fatima Zaidi: And your marketing is amazing. You're everywhere, everywhere I look, you're like promoting your show. So, well, this is the thing you have to reach people on different platforms and organically diversify where folks are coming in from.

And so you're checking all of the boxes in terms of Here are 10 things. So that's the thing. I can stand in this conversation and say things like maybe some form of banner ads applying Apple's new and noteworthy placement form, applying for podcast awards pitching other podcasts to be a guest speaker or doing audio ad swaps or RSS rental swaps.

These are all things that. Actually do help drive your listener count up in a very authentic way. The challenge is it takes time and it's a grind and it's labor intensive, but it's like building a personal brand or building your company. There's no such thing as overnight success. And the reason your show has been so successful is because a, you're Producing good content and you're frequently producing your content and distributing it and consistent with when you're doing it.

So your SEO patterns aren't being interrupted. And the second is that you've like figured out the marketing hack and the marketing hack is that there's no hack.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. Yeah. I figured that out pretty early on. And I also figured out too, that I didn't want to end up, I saw those ads. You don't mean Like any podcast or we're being approached every week by 15 or 20 people saying, Hey, we can up, you know, we can give you a hundred thousand downloads in seven days or whatever.

And it's like, it's all bullshit. Like you have to recognize that they're not the listeners you want. Even if you were to get that, they are not the people you're trying to connect with. They are not going to build the community you need to build.

Fatima Zaidi: Yeah, actually. I also understand the tech because we own a tech product that's also hosting.

I, you can see the RSS feed logs coming in and I actually know what's happening when you get 20, 000 downloads and how those people are being signed up and subscribing to your show and it's. It's definitely not the way that you want to be reaching your audiences.

Kelly Kennedy: No, no. That was why eventually we just switched over to Spotify because I said, look, Spotify is legitimate.

I know for a fact that they are actually showing my ads because I created the ads. I put them in and I said, put, share them on, you know, on, on your music and on your podcasts. And even though you're right, it's like the growth rate was Spotify. Yeah, it's not great. It's not great, but it is consistent. And as long as we're investing in that, I at least can feel good about that growth.

I know that that growth is going to provide me long term success.

Fatima Zaidi: Totally.

Kelly Kennedy: Are there any other avenues that you recommend to utilize Fatima?

Fatima Zaidi: Yeah, there are. I would say definitely look at some banner ad companies, not all of them, for example, Listen Network. The conversion rates aren't that high, which like already I'm interested because you're not promising 20, 000 downloads overnight.

And if you talk to their team, they like, they, they also used like similar to us used to not used to, they run a production company and they're also customers of co hosts. So the founder, Jake from content allies. And I've had very long conversations about like authentic marketing. And so I think they're just very conscious of that because they were on the other side of the story, which is producing shows and, you know, dealing with the same frustrations.

I always am impartial to product companies that have a producing arm as well, because they're in the trenches with their customers and understand the pain points. So they're building a product for themselves. They're less concerned about like the overnight grimy hacks and more so concerned about providing value because they're in the shoes of the folks that they're serving.

And so Listen Network, I think lower conversion rate, but they can explain to you how they authentically reach folks. So that's definitely one if you're looking to go the paid route. So. Sponsored series contents are definitely one of them. For example, I know beta kit charges 2, 500 or 3, 000 for a sponsored content.

If you're reaching a tech audience, for example, actually might be a really great tactic for you, Kelly, because I think the audience that you're reaching would definitely be reading beta kits, something that you would want to consider.

Kelly Kennedy: Okay.

Fatima Zaidi: Investing in PR, working with a team like AdvertiseCast for audio ads on other similar shows.

AdvertiseCast is one of the vendors that we work with, specifically Bob Kane, who works at Libsyn. And he is amazing, and like, I trust him. And these are, you know, conversations that I have with him too, like, Bob, we want legitimate listeners. We're willing to pay a premium for a lower download count, but we don't want a bunch of bots and they get it.

So I would say there are definitely reputable tactics not to be replaced by the grind of, you know, reaching out to podcasts, positioning yourself as a potential guest speaker, applying for all your PR awards, including the podcast awards, which The, I think the winners are being announced end of May for this round.

And also just really thinking about all of the organic opportunities, like creating great content, serving your listeners, creating engagement platforms for them, you know, just there's no, there's so many different ways that you can authentically reach people. But, I mean, if you're looking for overnight success, then like, yes, invest in one of these listing platforms again, those that shall not be named.

Kelly Kennedy: I love it. Yeah, no. And I, and you touched on it too, like really connecting with your listeners. And that's something that, you know, I respond to it. I try to respond to every single message I get. I've made so many and so many amazing friends and met so many amazing people since I've launched this show. I could have never imagined the reach we would have had when I started talking to my wall, you know, 15 months ago.

Fatima Zaidi: Well, congratulations again, Kelly, it's very impressive and you should be a case study on how to do it right. So I really appreciate talking to people like you in it. And it's just, you know, a confirmation that when you are slow and steady wins the race.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, thank you so much. You know, I want to spend some time today, though, chatting about co host because you know what?

I love co host. You know, I've been using co host since the day I started this show and you guys have been so supportive in helping me and resolving any challenges that I've had. And it's like, no matter where you go, you're going to run into challenges. It's how do you resolve them? And you guys are so on point with saying, Kelly, I'll handle this.

I'll get it fixed immediately. And I just wanted to say that, you know, the platform you've created there as a Canadian platform, I'm very proud to be a part of it.

Fatima Zaidi: Well, thank you so much. Yeah. You know, cohost has been it's been a really interesting experience because I think it's pushed us to become true experts in analytics and measurement.

And there is a direct correlation with understanding the data and insights and then turning it into a tailored marketing strategy for your clients and customers. And so I have never felt like an expert more than I do today because my days are full of. Crammed with measuring analytics data and driving insights, and then based on that, putting together audience growth strategies for our clients.

And then it's so rewarding to see the fruits of your labor come through in the form of the right listeners. And so I think that. When we created the product, we, it was a vision for us to have a tool that we could use to level up editorially, level up from a marketing standpoint, give our clients a piece of mind that yes, we are reaching the right listeners because before could just be like, here are your listeners, but we don't know if they're the right listeners.

And because of our product, we have seen a very direct correlation with brands. Now, Reinvesting into additional production budgets and continuing to podcast. And that was our hope. We wanted to create a product that helped solidify podcasting as a medium in your content mix and justify why brands should podcast in our product has allowed us to approach that in a very ROI driven way.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. No, it's amazing. It's amazing. I love cohost. I'm a huge fan. I recommend it. We have so many listeners and guests now starting their own shows. It's been crazy. We've had at least at least three guests to date now have launched their own shows based on honestly just coming on our show and loving it.

And so I think that that's so cool. And I really see that being the future. And we're just seeing so many people being brave and taking that jump and saying, you know what, I'm going to do it. I'm going to try it. And you know, I just encourage everybody like, you know, I am an I'm an introverted person.

I never ever saw myself doing this. And I'm so thankful that I did. And you know, I like to encourage all business owners to just take this jump and try it for themselves. But yeah, it does take effort. It does take time. It's a learned skill. It is a grind, but it is a grind that is so fulfilling.

Fatima Zaidi: It is very fulfilling, and I know we're at time, but I just want to say one more thing regarding co host, which is because we've been working with professional podcasters.

I know that our product is on the pricier and in terms of the demographic and psychographic demographic metrics that we provide as well as be to be analytics. And so our team right now is actively working on a feature that can support more independent creators and folks that maybe don't have it. The same budgets that brands and networks do, but still can get access to a lot of these insights.

So if you're listening and you feel like how boost is very unattainable and out of question for you because of the fact that we serve as bigger brands, networks and professional podcasters, we are thinking of you. We do not want to alienate a huge market share. You guys are the future of podcasting. And so we are working on a way to bring in these folks to our products so that they can get access to a lot of the metrics that I just talked about for a more affordable price point.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh, that's absolutely amazing. That's so great, Fatima. I'm so excited. I love it when you guys release new features. I'm always looking forward to it.

Fatima Zaidi: Thank you. I really appreciate that. And thank you for all the support that you've provided us for being an early adopter and championing us for having me on your show.

Happy podcasting everyone.

Kelly Kennedy: Happy podcasting, everyone. This has been episode 168 of the Business Development Podcast, and we will catch you on the flip side.

Outro: This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry.

And founded his own business development firm in 2020. His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development. The show is brought to you by capital business development, your business development specialists. For more, we invite you to the website at www.capitalbd.ca. See you next time on the business development podcast.