B2B Podcasting Insights - B2B sales & audience engagement strategies for founders and brands

That's Spotify's page for my podcast. And that's my company's website, sitting underneath it. Not Spotify's page for the show, either. One episode. A single episode of mine, on somebody else's platform, ranking above the website I actually pay for. I run a podcast agency. This is my own show. And in more than 45 episodes of telling founders to go and look at their own numbers, I had never once typed my own show name into a search bar. It took 45 seconds. I'm Neal Veglio, and in this episode of B2B Podcasting Insights I walk down the whole results page top to bottom — what Google has already answered before anyone can click anything, who's bidding against your show's name, and why the thing representing your podcast to complete strangers is almost certainly a page you've never opened. I'm also going to be honest about which bits of this I actually understand, and that matters more than it sounds like it does. There's a point in here where I stop, because I can feel myself about to become a man with opinions about Google — and the reason most podcast advice is useless is that nobody will say the words "I don't know that." What I can talk about is the podcast bit. So there are five things you can go and fix today, none of which require an SEO expert, and one of which takes 45 seconds. Plus a Founder FAQ from Struan in Glasgow whose guest wants to hear the edit before it goes out, and a quick tip about the one-click button in your editing software that's quietly turning your guests into robots. Useful links Podknows Website https://podknows.co.uk B2B Podcast Growth Diagnostic https://podknows.co.uk/diagnostic Podcast Audits https://podknows.co.uk/audits Nikki Pilkington — SEO (mentioned in this episode) https://seofuckingwhatpodcast.co.uk/ Leave me a voicemail question https://podknows.co.uk/voicemail Or email me directly: [email protected] Timestamped summary 00:00 Spotify is outranking my own website 00:37 45 episodes of "go and check your numbers" — and I never had 00:57 Conversion needs supply: episodes don't bring strangers in 01:57 Result one: Google answered before anyone can click 02:26 Credited like a photographer on a stock image 02:46 Result two: who's bidding against your show's name 03:10 Result three: the first thing a human can actually click 03:59 Results four and five: Spotify's episode above my company site 04:11 Don't get cross with Spotify — this is an ownership problem 04:45 The dates: stamped June versus published every Friday 05:04 Where I stop, and why "I don't know" matters 05:59 What producing an SEO podcast taught me 06:22 My theory: freshness is doing something 06:53 What's Nikki's department and what's mine 07:23 Five things you can actually fix 09:03 These results won't change on their own 10:00 Founder FAQ: a guest wants to hear the edit first 12:21 Quick tip: stop deleting every breath 14:44 How to send me a question

If you've been told to niche down your B2B podcast, you've probably never been told what it costs — or who exactly you'd be saying goodbye to. Pick a lane. Speak to one audience. If you're speaking to everybody, you're speaking to nobody. Nobody disagrees with that in the abstract. Almost nobody does it. And the reason is simple: the advice arrives without a price tag attached, which makes it a sacrifice with no stated return. I'm Neal Veglio, and in this episode of B2B Podcasting Insights, I'm putting an actual price tag on niching down — naming the four groups of listeners you genuinely lose, and then asking the only question that matters about each one: were they ever going to become a client? We look at why a tighter focus means being closer to 10,000 listeners than 100,000 and why that's the right outcome, what happened when I compared my own two shows side by side (one gets more downloads and makes almost nothing), why the subscriber count in your dashboard has never paid an invoice, and why conversion goes up precisely because reach went down. There's also the homework: sort your audience into two piles and work out which one you're actually protecting. Plus a Founder FAQ from Denny in Manchester, who has been staring at his show description for three weeks wondering whether he's allowed to call himself a visionary. And a quick tip that will make you delete a line from your outro today. Useful links Podknows Website https://podknows.co.uk B2B Podcast Growth Diagnostic https://podknows.co.uk/diagnostic Podcast Audits https://podknows.co.uk/audits Leave me a voicemail question https://podknows.co.uk/voicemail Or email me directly: [email protected] Timestamped summary 00:41 "Pick a lane" — and why almost nobody does 01:32 Putting a price tag on your ignored customers 02:07 Cost one: the adjacent industry listener 02:33 Cost two: the browser 03:14 Cost three: the network you built on breadth 03:45 Cost four: the numbers, and this one stings 04:59 Say it out loud: 10,000, not 100,000 05:28 My two shows compared, honestly 06:47 Names in a CRM beat numbers in a dashboard 07:16 One question to ask about every name on the list 08:22 The loss is real. It was never a client list 08:56 What's left: people who recognise themselves 09:58 Conversion goes up because reach went down 10:25 Your homework: two piles 11:37 The only version of niching that genuinely hurts 12:29 Yes, downloads will drop. Here's why that's fine 13:00 Founder FAQ: Denny in Manchester on the "visionary" problem 14:43 Quick tip: "rate and review" needs to die 15:52 Final thoughts and next steps

For the first five minutes of this episode, it's not me. Jase is a B2B podcast growth guru. Jase has never listened to a single episode of this show. And Jase has nine strategies for scaling yours that he's giving away free, because that's the kind of guy he is. Useful links Podknows Podcasting → https://podknows.co.uk B2B Podcast Growth Diagnostic → https://podknows.co.uk/diagnostic Podcast Audits → https://podknows.co.uk/audits Free Guide → https://podknows.co.uk/free-guide Email me directly → [email protected] Chapters 00:00 Meet Jase 00:27 Volume, guests, and never niching down 01:35 Consistency at all costs 01:49 Forty clips an episode 02:06 Downloads as the north star 02:28 Up 411%, and the cash it earned 03:07 Reviews, runtime and recycled trends 03:38 The engagement game 05:30 None of it was made up

Everybody puts their energy into the open. By the time you reach the end, the interview's done, the narration's delivered, the energy's gone, and somebody has to say something to close it out. Low vibe. Not going to convert. I'm Neal Veglio, and in this episode of B2B Podcasting Insights, I'm breaking down the three mistakes that turn a perfectly good episode into a dead end — and the two tests that tell you within seconds whether your ask is real or just polite noise. We look at why asking a 20-minute listener for a 30-minute call is the equivalent of proposing marriage in a LinkedIn comment, why "follow, rate and review" is a favour to you dressed up as help for them, and why the reason your call to action isn't landing probably isn't the offer at all — it's that you're asking for a rung four action on the end of a rung one episode. There's also the placement point almost nobody gets right: the strongest moment for your ask is roughly two-thirds in, not in an outro most listeners never reach. Plus a Founder FAQ from Tom in Norwich, who can hear himself rambling and wants to know how to tighten it up — and a quick tip that will turn an hour of hunting for good takes into about ten minutes of clicking. Useful links 90 Seconds Test - https://podknows.co.uk/cta-test/ Podknows Website https://podknows.co.uk B2B Podcast Growth Diagnostic https://podknows.co.uk/diagnostic Podcast Audits https://podknows.co.uk/audits Leave me a voicemail question https://podknows.co.uk/voicemail Or email me directly: [email protected] Timestamped summary 00:00 Is this how your podcast episodes end? 00:12 "Wherever you get your podcasts" is not a call to action 01:10 Welcome, and what we've built over the last few episodes 01:36 Mistake one: the availability announcement 02:52 Mistake two: the size mismatch 03:25 Mistake three: the favour dressed up as an ask 04:21 Fifty episodes in? Stop asking for vanity metrics 05:18 What a call to action actually is 05:45 The 90-second test 06:10 The better off test 06:58 The ladder of loyalty: four rungs, four different asks 08:51 Why your call to action isn't landing 09:05 One ask per episode, and where to put it 10:12 Say it twice and spell it 11:18 Recap, and my own email ask 12:05 Founder FAQ: Tom in Norwich on rambling 14:54 Quick tip: the three-second pause that saves your edit 16:42 Final thoughts and your homework 17:37 Next time: how you'll know if any of it worked

If you've got a B2B podcast and you're waiting for the feed to do the work, this episode reframes the whole thing. Publishing gets the episode into the world. It doesn't get it into the one pair of ears that matters. Because your podcast's most valuable listen this year won't come from someone discovering you. It'll come from one prospect, three or four weeks into a decision, who gets sent one specific episode on a Tuesday morning because of something they said on Monday afternoon. That person doesn't follow your show. They're not on your YouTube channel. They've never seen a single one of your clips. And their one listen is worth more to your business than a thousand downloads. I'm Neal Veglio, and in this episode of B2B Podcasting Insights I'm finally explaining the secret sauce I hinted at back in episode 44 — why a branded podcast is a joint venture asset between sales and marketing, and why almost every B2B show is quietly stranded between two teams who each think it belongs to the other. We look at the one document that fixes it (and why it has to live in the CRM, not a marketing folder), why "here's our episodes, help yourself" is a buffet nobody's hungry for, the three-part message that actually gets an episode listened to, why you should timestamp every single send, and why it has to come from sales rather than marketing to work at all. There's also the loop this creates: sales conversations produce the episodes, the episodes go back into the sales conversations, and the replies tell you which arguments are landing. Which is a far better signal than any dashboard is ever going to give you. Plus a Founder FAQ from Fiona in Dundee on hating the sound of your own voice, and a quick tip that fixes the flattest thirty seconds of most podcasts. Useful links Podknows Website https://podknows.co.uk B2B Podcast Growth Diagnostic https://podknows.co.uk/diagnostic Podcast Audits https://podknows.co.uk/audits Leave me a voicemail question https://podknows.co.uk/voicemail Or email me directly: [email protected]