The Rise of a Top 5 Podcast, with Erica Hall

The FinTalking podcast demonstrated how meaningful content, delivered with enthusiasm and depth, backed by energetic promotional activity can achieve success. Six months after launch, FinTalking had already been featured in the coveted Apple Podcasts “New & Noteworthy” spot and entered the Top 5 Finance podcast charts in Australia.

Show host, Erica Hall talks about how the trio fine-tuned their formula, focused on covering all the bases with promotion and leveraged their existing audiences. We also covered more guerilla recording techniques and tips for kick-starting podcasts.

After only 10 episodes, the FinTalking podcast folded at the end of 2020. Erica’s new podcast “Moneycraft” is due to launch in Summer 2021.

Links

Erica Hall (LinkedIn)
FinTalking website
FinTalking on Apple Podcasts
Chartable

Transcription

Martin Franklin 0:22
Welcome back to Metapod with me, Martin Franklin. This is Episode Two of our series of podcaster profiles, where we talk to successful podcasters and find out how they do what they do. This episode, I’m speaking to Erica Hall, Eric is a finance professional. And along with two colleagues, she started the fin talking podcast. Within six months, they were in the top five of finance podcasts in Australia. We talked about preparation for a podcast, to script or to improvise on the topic. Erica gives an absolute masterclass in how to promote awareness and conversation around the topics of each episode, including her approach to Facebook ads, LinkedIn, and YouTube. So let’s hear about the rise and fall of a popular podcast with Erica Hall. You’re the only show that I produce where there are three, three co hosts. And when you’re starting from zero, that that kind of journey of finding what the roles are and what what roles need to be fulfilled in I must be quite interesting. Have you got any reflections on that?

Erica Hall 1:42
First of all, it was really well, who who are we talking to? And I think that that was a real disconnect. Initially, we didn’t sort of realize until we sat down or got together to do our first recording. And, and it was clear that, you know, we had probably different perspectives. And so I think, really no, to answer your question. As we’ve gone along, those roles have become more defined. And we’ve become much more cohesive as a group in terms of where I think we are now very well aligned with what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, who we’re talking to. And even then I think whilst we’re probably talking to what I would say, sort of the end investor in our jobs, we tend to talk to the intermediaries or sort of the institutions. I think that Yeah, initially, there was a thought that we were talking to institutions, and we’re looking to sort of add our voice at that sort of more professional, not professional, it’s probably not the right word, but a really educated investor. And so there was a real disconnect in terms of the way the conversations were going as a result, and we started to sort of set things up was more like a panel discussion at a conference, because that’s something we’re used to doing, or more like a formal presentation. And so it took a bit of trial and error and a little bit of guidance from you actually, as well, Martin, just to get that natural conversation going, rather than being barely really stilted. And being really, almost over prepared and delivering a monologue, like a presentation.

Martin Franklin 3:20
That point about the preparation is, you know, that’s something I find very interesting how to adequately prepare so that you’re not at a loss for how to tackle your subject, but not entirely sounding like you’re reading from a script.

Erica Hall 3:37
Look, I think you’re spot on there. And I think we probably went way too far, like, because we’re so used to being very organized and prepared. And we’re all a little bit OCD. and wanting to leave no stone unturned and being really sort of structured, but then it came across as not very authentic and really structured and probably not the, the delivery wasn’t what we wanted to deliver the content maybe, but not the way that it was coming across was was not at all natural or conversational, which is really what we were trying to achieve. So I think it’s a trust thing as well between the three of us and just working out how we’re all going to work together. And I think now that we’ve done a few episodes, we’ve got our little rhythm going. And so what seems to be working really well now is we’ll just determine a topic. And then we’ll have somebody take control of actually introducing the topic and then we’ll just talk and it seems to be much more natural now like it really was and we’re still preparing but we’re not structuring it and writing down every single thing that we’re going to say it is literally all the process is we determine what the topic is and the process for that is, you know, we read a lot we were out there talking to people and so you will say to each other are what do you think about this as a topic for the next podcast and As a group, we all agree, yes, that that sounds really great. And then if we decide we’re going to go ahead with that topic, we set up a whatsapp group, just for that topic. And we start putting all the sort of materials that we think are relevant to the conversation in that whatsapp group. And that’s a development because in the past, we were just like, there was information flying everywhere, and it wasn’t particularly structured. And so things are getting missed.

Martin Franklin 5:24
So you’ve got a pool of information that you can all dip into when it suits you to then sort of absorb the factual details of the

Erica Hall 5:34
of the topic Exactly. And then we can sort of be aware that somebody may refer to that and then have already had a chance to read it, and then make a sort of meaningful comment on that. But I think what happened with one of the first podcasts we did, somebody raised some fantastic research. And I’d actually read that research, but a few years ago, and so I was on the hop trying to remember the details. And so I thought that was such excellent research. But wouldn’t it have been great if we share that around and we could have had, we could have spent quite a bit of time on that, because it was so fantastic. And so, so then we started to try and sort of share the information through email or text, and it was, again, just wasn’t quite working. So the WhatsApp is perfect. So you have a whatsapp group for the topic. information goes into that whatsapp group, and then everyone’s across what’s likely to be raised or not everything gets raised across, it just depends on where the conversation goes. On the day,

Martin Franklin 6:27
When you’re kind of preparing those, those topics, do you at that point, nominate someone as the person who will kick off, you know, the show and kind of introduce?

Martin Franklin 6:39
No, yet.

Erica Hall
No, not not necessarily. So normally, then as we’re getting closer to the date that we’re going to record the podcast, then. And this is again, we’re just learning as we go. But certainly what seems to work now is then at that point, will nominate or will agree, who wants to do and we try and share it around. So I think it’s really important to be fair and equitable when there’s three of you, and so that there’s not one person dominating, we see ourselves as sort of equals. And so therefore, we want to make sure everybody gets a fair opportunity to speak, what we’re now doing now that we’re getting more used to the processes, we’ll then also do a timeline, obviously, we let our Podcast Producer know when we’re recording so we can get the editing underway. We know that we want to do a transcript for SEO purposes. So we all great who’s doing that we try to share that around who’s got the time to do it. If we can write an article, or draw on other sort of articles, we’ll get those altogether as part of the show notes as well. And then they’ll also probably feature in the transcript with when we then actually sort of go live with the podcast will then use all social media channels. So we’ll use LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Just to let people know that the episode is Ouch, we’ll upload to our website, the transcript. And then, after we’ve launched the episode, if we see interesting articles relating to the episode, we’ll then just post those on social media as well, just to keep the conversation going.

Martin Franklin 8:22
I guess that’s a potential nice use of your WhatsApp polls, you can then sort of feed out the inspirational content, you know, as like a tail after the show has been been released.

Erica Hall 8:33
You’re right. And actually, we haven’t done that is as structured as we could, because it is all sitting there. But it’s probably we’ve probably been more ad hoc about it.

Martin Franklin 8:43
Yeah, I wanted to ask you about the the audience growth questions on socialism is a sort of something else, really. But yeah, well, let’s talk about that now. Because, you know, you always seem to do really well for, you know, views and, and reactions. Is that primarily coming from your industry? Audience?

Erica Hall 9:04
It’s a really good question, because we didn’t think that the content was actually going to resonate with the industry, because the industry is very knowledgeable already, and our content is really pitched at that investor. But it is surprising how many people in the industry have embraced the podcast actually. So yes, we’ve definitely had already pretty strong, I guess, the network on LinkedIn. And so that was a natural place to go initially to sort of get support from our existing community and our existing network. But Facebook was one that we sort of identified as, you know, probably a great target place to find their audience that would resonate with the content that we were looking to deliver. So we did we have been trialing Facebook ads, and I think they’ve been really, really successful. Cool. So, still learning. There’s so different ways you can skin that cat in terms of the types of ads that you can do. And so I’ve tried a few different ones.

Martin Franklin 10:11
So can you give us a little bit of detail? I’ll try. Like, I’ve never seen them.

Erica Hall 10:18
I look, I mean, Facebook’s amazing because it has data in spades. So you can be really specific in terms of who you want to target. So for example, not only geographic regions, but people’s topics of interest. So you can target people that are interested in personal finance, you can target people that are interested in podcasts, you can target, whatever the hell you want, really. And so that’s been really fascinating to be able to hone in and target people that we think are going to resonate with the content that we’re delivering. What do your ads look like? Well, we’re using the audiograms, actually. So we’re a bit of both. So Facebook doesn’t seem to do videos so well, that Instagram does. And obviously, Facebook and Instagram are the one company. And so the videos definitely have been resonating and getting a lot of traction on Instagram, but not so much on Facebook. And now I’m just doing kitchen versions as well. So not sort of as interactive and encouraging people to click on the podcast. So that’s worked really, really well. It’s definitely driven traffic and definitely driven downloads to the podcast. So that’s the great thing about advertising, Facebook retargeting, but you also get all the data to sort of, I guess, verify whether the ads are working. And then what I’ve done is I’ve created custom links, so I can see as well, I can not that I don’t trust Facebook, but just want to check for my own knowledge. And definitely, you know, seeing the results of the advertising. And the advertising doesn’t have to cost a lot, either, I basically been limiting myself to $5 a day for five days. So I run an ad campaign for five days, and literally had 1000s of interactions. So you know, and I mean, and I’m limiting it to Australia and New Zealand. And then I found that I taught on I just to the United States, and I found that we got really a lot of traction in Mexico for one podcast, which is very unexpected.

Martin Franklin
Where do you send people when when they click through?

Erica Hall What I’ve been doing is sending them to the podcast. So…

Martin Franklin 12:31
On your website?

Erica Hall 12:32
Well, no, I started off, just sending them to Apple. And now as I’m learning as I go, so now chattable allows you to do a link. And then with that link, it will actually you can actually set rules. And so if you’re on an Android, you go to Google, if you’re on an Apple product, you’ll go to Apple, etc, etc. So you can actually direct people to where you want them to go. And if you’re on a device that don’t know, then it gives you all the options. And so that’s now what I’m doing is saying, okay, just go and listen to the podcast. And so I’m the ads that I’m doing is specific for the episode. So we’re trying to engage them with the topics that we’re actually talking about in the podcast.

Martin Franklin 13:17
Yeah. Oh, that’s amazing. So aside from Facebook, have you got any kind of top tips for promoting on other platforms? How’s YouTube going for us?

Erica Hall 13:32
Yeah, look, and I must admit, so this is where as you know, the three of us we sort of divide and conquer. So one of the other ladies has been really running with YouTube. And I think it hasn’t been that amazing. But I think that we probably need to work out how to advertise there. So I don’t know that there’s a lot of knowledge that we’re even on YouTube. And we haven’t really sort of told anyone were there. And so I was saying to her look, we probably should do like a bit of a bit of research in terms of how to advertise on YouTube, because I think that that one’s pretty quiet.

Martin Franklin 14:04
It’s very difficult. And this is not just me, but it’s very difficult to push people to different platforms. So I think it’s, it’s a particular case on YouTube, like, people are on YouTube, because they want to be on YouTube. So it’s less likely that they’ll click and go to Facebook or go to Apple or somewhere else. So I guess at some point, you you may well find that you can’t cover all the platforms.

Erica Hall 14:33
Yeah, look, I think for YouTube, like so the idea there is that we will start to video ourselves during the podcast and then that would make it a natural sense to then be on YouTube, but we haven’t quite got to that point yet.

Martin Franklin 14:48
This is the real kind of, you know, amazing formula of Joe Rogan experience and those other you know, kind of shows where you get the it’s all platforms, but it’s on all platforms in a kind of native way.

Unknown Speaker 15:04
Facebook has done pretty well. But LinkedIn has definitely been the standout probably because we’re all really familiar with that platform and know how to use it. But the Facebook is growing quite strongly that Twitter and YouTube are pretty, pretty slow and Instagrams not too bad either. I think that Yeah, they’re the two that we could definitely spend some more time on YouTube and, and with our I think,

Martin Franklin 15:28
Okay, well, thanks, Erica, that’s pretty much covered all the thoughts that I had about your particular podcast but really, really well. I will theoretically stop recording now. But unless you say something really interesting.

Erica Hall 15:45
No pressure.

Martin Franklin 15:48
The question I’m about to ask you. But just after hearing you talk about, you know, all of this very sort of focused effort that you’re putting into the promotion, it just makes me wonder about what’s the next development that, you know, would sustain the show and help it get to another level? That seems to be the question, which is, you know, which is up?

Erica Hall 16:13
Yeah, look at it’s interesting, because we’ve also talked about, maybe we’ll bring in some guests, because we’ve been in industry for quite a long time. We know a lot of amazing people that would make fantastic guests. But we’ve had some people go Oh, but no, like we listen to you guys, you don’t want to hear guests. And so that’s sort of surprising. Like, I didn’t sort of think that, you know, like, we’re like a show the three of us, like, show. Yeah. So I think one of the things that we were absolutely adamant about is that we would need a producer. So we, when we thought about all the things that we wanted to focus our time on our time being quite limited, we wanted to focus on the content, and we didn’t want to focus on actually trying to produce it, we saw that as if, like a particular skill that we’d none of us had, and none of us really wanted to sort of spend the time trying to acquire it either. And so you know, that it made sense to find a really good could use a partner to work with. And that’s been it so far, I said, he was like, that’s, that’s okay. work out what you want to do, and then outsource the stuff that you’ve done. You don’t want to do or you don’t have the capability to do to professionals.

Martin Franklin 17:21
Yeah, I think that’s a particularly sort of enlightened view that you’ve had there. Because there’s a large number of people who sort of take a view of like, How hard can it be, you know, it can be really hard. Like, just tell me what software you use, and I can do what you do, you know,

Erica Hall 17:39
Yeah, no you can’t . Yeah, I mean, that’s it. And we really appreciate that, like, were three professionals that have been, you know, sort of industry for a long period of time. So if we’re going to do something we wanted to be do something we were proud of that it was something that we all were adamant on. And so we didn’t want it to be something half baked or something that, you know, we weren’t sort of proud to be associated with. And so having that having a producer just takes it to the next level, and it is and that’s the thing, everybody keeps saying to us, it’s just so slick, and it’s not really like I’m sitting in my cupboard recording at 7am in the morning. But the producer makes it really slick and makes it sound really slick.

Martin Franklin 18:22
Right. So just just as a little parting topic, can you tell us about this cupboard? Seriously, is this your technique to achieve silence and…

Erica Hall 18:39
Basically my walking robe, which is crammed, because I’m a fashion victim and I love clothing. So it’s absolutely crammed full of clothing, which makes for a fantastic acoustic acoustic environment which is another reason why I’m challenged in terms of the YouTube video component that the ladies when I do.

Erica Hall 18:59
Don’t think my cupboard is conducive.

Martin Franklin 19:01
It’ll be distinctive.

Erica Hall 19:04
And it just yeah, it creates this a fantastic environment from a sound and acoustic perspective to deliver that quality that that we want to be able to deliver on the podcast. And so we literally are all sitting in our cupboards which is you know, pretty funny, I think. But it works.

Martin Franklin 19:32
Yeah, I well. Yeah, I think we The world needs photographs.

Erica Hall 19:37
There are a few, that hopefully will never be released.

Martin Franklin 19:46
Thanks for giving spare time out of your day to share your podcasting wisdom