Podcasts have been exploding in popularity over the last few years — and law firms are starting to see the value in adding podcasts to their marketing mix. LISI’s Director of Client Success and Marketing, Taryn Elliott, and Director of Marketing Technology + Operations, Dan Martin, answer all your questions about podcasts on this month’s, Ask Me Anything.

Taryn:

Welcome everybody to this week’s LISI livestream. It is an episode of Ask Me Anything and I am your host Taryn Elliott, Director of Client Success and Marketing at LISI. And I am joined this week by Dan Martin, the Director of Marketing Technologies and Operations at LISI. Welcome, Dan.

Dan:

Thanks, Taryn.

Taryn:

I am happy that we were able to get you for this Friday afternoon recording of this livestream because Sunday’s a big day, not just for you but for the whole LISI team and the entire city of Philadelphia of which I am not a member of the Philadelphia population but it has been really exciting for the last two weeks at LISI as everyone gets excited about the Philadelphia Eagles run for the Super Bowl championship. So do you have big plans for Super Bowl Sunday?

Dan:

I am going to my friend’s house who lives right downtown on Broad Street. So good. Fingers crossed that they win. We will be right there for the celebration. But to your point, it’s been a very long week here in Philadelphia and now we’re probably just over 48 hours here from kickoff and I’m sure everybody is super excited. So happy to be here and get this out of the way.

Taryn:

Yes, although LISI works with law firms across the country and you know, our team is spread out as well. We are at heart a Philadelphia organization so we are very excited. Even those of us who don’t live in Philadelphia are, Go Eagles all the way or I guess Go Birds. I learned that.

Dan:

Yes, Go Birds.

Taryn:

Not being from Philadelphia, you can tell, I say Go Eagles but everyone else on our team is like, nope. If you’re from Philly, you say Go Birds. So Go Birds.

Dan:

Yeah, well, I mean if they win, most of the team will be happy. So that’s good morale.

Taryn:

Yes. I know Philadelphia’s been to the Super Bowl before, I know when the Colts made it which is where I’m from, Indianapolis, it was a really big deal. Like I definitely remember the celebrations from the year we won, so fingers crossed.

Dan:

Yes.

Taryn:

But we are not here to talk about the Eagles or the Super Bowl, as exciting as they are, we are here to talk about something that I know is very near and dear to my heart. I know Dan is also really close to this topic as well and that is podcasts and podcasting. So this is the topic of our “Ask Me Anything,” drop questions into the chat if you have them. We have some submitted, but I feel like podcasting is one of those content and marketing topics that has really just exploded in the last couple years, especially with law firms, and is still picking up steam in the legal market. So I’m really excited to talk about it. We launched our podcast a little bit over a year ago. We’ve launched podcasts for clients within the last year and just like really broadly, Dan, this isn’t a question, I’m just, I’m curious as to what your take is on podcasts and legal marketing and kind of where we’ve been and where we’re going.

Dan:

Yeah, I mean I think exploded is the right word there. I mean if you had asked a law firm about podcasting in 2004 they would’ve been like, what are you talking about? But yeah, it’s just absolutely exploded. The medium is becoming extremely popular. You see podcasts popping up almost daily from different topics from law firms, sports, everywhere in between. So it’s a really popular medium and I think it works well for law firms because we all know that lawyers are extremely busy with client work and things like that. But if you can set aside 20 to 30 minutes to just sit down in a room and just chat about things, that’s a podcast really, just sketch your thoughts out and you don’t have to like write a blog and then go back and edit it and things like that. So it really affords lawyers a little bit more flexibility in terms of creating content, in my opinion.

Taryn:

Well, and what I love about podcasts both for legal marketing, but marketing in general or just as a entertainment and information consumption medium is that you can take in a podcast almost anywhere. You know, for like, I was driving to Chicago last weekend and I listened to a bunch of podcasts because I was driving, my kid was sleeping, I had to do something, and you know, that’s really changed how we consume content. You don’t have to be in a position to watch something, you don’t have to be in a position to read something. You can do it while you’re running or working out or making dinner or driving or commuting, whatever it is. And it’s really kind of the one medium that is all accessible no matter what you’re doing unless you’re like somewhere where it’s super loud in which case just use your voice-canceling headphones, you can take in a podcast, which is really different than a lot of the other ways that we get content out. And I think even the conversation has changed a little bit from what are you reading or what are you watching both personally or for professional development to what are you listening to? Have you heard this new podcast?

Dan:

Yeah, absolutely.

Taryn:

You know, even like somebody was sick the other day and they’re like, I was really sick and I couldn’t watch anything ’cause it made me feel worse and like I couldn’t read ’cause I just couldn’t focus, but I could listen to podcasts and like that’s what they did while they were sick or again, any of the other ways. 

I think the conversations really changed around there and I think we’re to a point now where people are starting to have recommendations about podcasts in the same way we have about books and shows in the past.

Dan:

Yeah, yeah, I agree.

Taryn:

So the first question that was submitted to us that we’ll start with is I’m ready to start a podcast, but what’s the first step? And I’ll start with this, and Dan if you wanna jump in, you can, but really the first step is evaluating what your goals are, who your audience is, and how you plan on marrying the two. So a lot of that is content and topic and that is really your first step. What is your unique take? You know, for our clients it would be law firms. What is your unique take on a topic where you can kind of carve out your own niche and really own that space but also you have enough to talk about that is interesting and compelling to your target audience, which is the second part of that. 

And then, you know, kind of the third part of that is what are your goals? Are you looking to raise your profile as a thought leader? Are you looking to get more business? Those are the two we see most often. Are you looking to just produce more content as a part of your marketing strategy or your search engine optimization strategy? And kind of how you plan on doing those will also inform the topics that you pick and possibly even the audience that you are looking to target. And then from there, once you have that figured out you can start discussing what format is right for you, how often you wanna release a podcast, and kind of figure out your process from there. Dan, do you have anything else to add from having launched a couple podcasts about what the first step should be?

Dan:

Yeah, no, I think you hit it exactly correct. I was just gonna say, once you have your topic and such, a lot of times we do see that lawyers are just trying to boost their thought leadership and things like that. So how can you communicate your thought leadership or your subject matter expertise, so to speak, on a certain topic, whatever it might be to your audience. That’s kind of the basis of a podcast.

Taryn:

And you know, for years as we’ve worked with clients on marketing and business development, one of the things that has always been a part of an attorney’s individual marketing and business development plan has been speaking engagements and a lot has changed, since COVID and conferences look a little bit differently but creating a podcast isn’t all that different from creating a series of speaking proposals. That helps a little bit too to look at it that way.

The question we probably get most often is, okay, well I’m starting this podcast but what hardware and software do I need? Which it came in, what hardware and software recommendations do you have for somebody looking to start a podcast? So Dan, you are the technology expert.

Dan:

Yes, so you’re ready to start a podcast and now you’re like how do I make this go? How do I make this work? And you know, I don’t want people to get scared and think that this is gonna cost them a million dollars to produce a podcast. You don’t need to build out and buy another floor at your law firm and have a professional studio. Like that’s not what we’re talking about. A podcast can be relatively inexpensive to start. So starting with the hardware, I mean you probably already have access to a computer, right? So there’s a checkmark in the win box for you, whether it’s PC or Mac, really doesn’t matter. And we can have that debate on another episode or a live stream of LISI, but there’s also options to record with your cell phone or what are called field recorders. 

There’s some variance in quality there that you might lose or gain, but you probably already have access to computers. So that’s the main hardware that you need ’cause you’re gonna need access to the internet or something to record with. So now that you have your computer, next up is microphones, and most computers, I wanna say all computers today come with a microphone, right? Whether that be in the computer or you have an external webcam that has a microphone. The problem with those is they aren’t the best quality. As I said here, I’m using an external microphone for this live stream and I know that when we do podcasts, we all use external microphones. I’m not talking that you need to go borrow a microphone from your local concert venue or whatever, but a nice USB mic can be helpful in terms of boosting the quality. 

Podcasting is an audio medium so you want to have the highest quality audio that you can present to the audience. So we recommend investing in a good external USB microphone that just plugs into your computer like any other USB would be, when you’re charging your iPhone that’s where your USB port goes, right? So there’s really three brands that I kind of look at as like the leaders, Blue Microphones, they make the popular Yeti microphones that a lot of people use in podcasting. Then you have anything basically from Shure who is a great audio brand, anything from them will be good quality. And then finally stuff that I’ve used in the past is Audio-Technica microphones, their USB microphones are fantastic for podcasting. 

So definitely I would recommend getting an external microphone for you and that’s where it’s gonna cost a little bit of money. On the cheaper end, you might buy one for let’s say 50 bucks, on the high end you might be getting one for 250 or whatever. So if you’re just starting out, 50 bucks can really make a difference in that quality as opposed to using something like your AirPods or just a computer mic. And then next we need to go on so now we have a computer and a microphone. Okay, where are we gonna record this, right? How do I use GarageBand or how do I actually record this thing, right? So there’s many ways to record podcasts nowadays because it’s such a popular medium, right? 

I’m sure everybody here has listened to podcasts that have been recorded over Zoom calls and those are fine, but I think you’ll agree with me, Taryn, when they’re recorded that way it’s a little bit less in quality. So we kind of recommend using a provider to facilitate recording. So like similar to hosting a website or something like that there are providers out there that will enable you to record a podcast. So we recommend Zencastr, which is we use for our podcast, or another one that is basically the same thing. It’s just a kind of slightly different is SquadCast. So these platforms function technically the same as Zoom in that you can see and hear who you’re talking to. 

The difference is in how they record things, right? So if Taryn and I were in a Zencastr right now, not only would Zencaster be recording our video each on separate files, it’s recording the audio on a separate file each of us. So that come time for post-production who’s ever gonna edit your podcast can line all that up, make sure the quality is as high as possible to put out the best podcast episode that you can put out. So definitely to sum it all up, you need a computer. We recommend buying an external microphone and then getting on either Zencastr or SquadCast, those platforms probably range around 20 to 30 bucks a month, right?

Taryn:

And I don’t have anything to add as relates to the technology because I got all my recommendations from you for that. But I do really recommend that we or that when you’re doing this you find a software that has a component of video for sure. Makes it a lot easier, even though the video is not necessarily what you’re releasing, it makes it a lot easier for the conversation to have that information there.

Dan:

Especially if you have more than two people on the podcast, right?

Taryn:

Yes, very much so. Makes it easier to kind of see what everybody’s doing and also to have just that eye contact that makes having a conversation a little bit easier. Well, the next question we have is what are the different formats for a podcast and what formats do you recommend?

Dan:

Yeah, I mean I see a few formats that I’ll kind of break out into buckets. They’re fairly consistent across the industry. You have your solo podcasts, if I just drew up the podcast and was doing one by myself, it’s just me talking about something, right? You have an interview podcast such as the “Huberman Lab” or “New Heights” go Birds, had to throw that one in there. You have your storytelling podcast which is like your fiction or your nonfiction stuff. I know “Serial” was very popular back in the day. So that’s an example of like a storytelling one. 

You have like your content adaptation or recap podcast which would be like a podcast about like “The Walking Dead” or like “The Rewatchables” from The Ringer where they watch a movie and then comment on it, right? And then the last bucket I have is like news. So something like the NPR podcasts or “The Daily” or “The Wall Street Journal Tech Briefing.” I think what format you choose is kind of up to you depending on what your topic is and who your hosts are. If you have a really charismatic podcast you might be able to get away with like a storytelling podcast or depending on what your topic is, right? 

I think a lot of firms will generally fall into the interview or news formats. And I think these formats work well because they give firms the opportunity to kind of showcase their thought leadership about a particular topic, right? So let’s say, you know, the Taryn and Dan Law Firm has a practice group focused on banking and finance, right? Maybe we could have an associate interview the practice group leader about, I don’t know, trending topics in the CFPB, for instance, right? So that would be like an interviewee-type news podcast. So I think that’s generally where firms are gonna find themselves slotting into.

Taryn:

Yeah, I mean the solo podcast can be really hard because you have to carry the entire podcast for a really long time and that’s just really intimidating to most people. Not just lawyers, just most people having to carry the whole thing. So I agree, the interview podcast where you can kind of go back and forth with somebody, or a news-focused podcast where maybe you can break it up a little bit, is the best way that most law firms find to start their podcast. There are some really interesting options for the storytelling podcast though as well which I know we’ve talked about with some of our clients. So I wouldn’t discount that one either.

Dan:

Yeah, absolutely.

Taryn:

The next question I have is how do I find guests? And I’ll go ahead and start this one. This one really varies kind of based on what you wanna say or who you want to talk to but what we recommend is just think about who are either the leaders or the thought leaders in that area or who do you find really interesting? And from there it’s just a little bit of being gutsy and asking. But thinking about who you wanna have, how they relate to your topic, will they appeal to your audience? And don’t forget, some people might appeal to your audience and also help you with the marketing on the backend as well. So that’s something to take into account.

Dan:

Yeah, absolutely.

Taryn:

But yeah, nothing complicated there. Just be brave when asking. 

Dan, next question. How do you distribute your podcast? I feel like this is a great question because if you’ve never done a podcast before, you’re probably like, where do these come from? Lots of people release them but how do we get them out in the world?

Dan:

Yeah, it might be kind of a mystery. Okay, I recorded a podcast, why isn’t it showing up on my iPhone? So after you recorded your podcast you wanna release it to the public. So similar to you probably have your website hosted on like GoDaddy or Bluehost or whatever, right? A podcast needs to be hosted somewhere and there are plenty of providers out there. We love Libsyn, it’s a platform that allows you to upload the final version of your podcast, and then the platform Libsyn distributes it to Apple, Spotify, Google Play, and all the other podcast distributors out there. 

That’s done using what’s called really simple syndication or an RSS feed, which basically means that the feed updates the show file each time you release a new episode and then Libsyn reads that, sends it out to Apple, and says, okay, hey Apple, we have a new episode. Apple grabs that and all the information that’s in that RSS feed. So that’s the file of the actual audio podcast. And then things like the description of the podcast and like your album artwork and things like that. So that’s kind of the easy way to explain how it actually gets on a platform like Spotify or Apple.

Taryn:

I love that. And that leads really well into our next question. Okay, so you’ve created your podcast and you’re distributing it. Now how do you market the podcasts? Or are there ways you can use your podcast in other forms of marketing? And I’ll jump in on this one. Marketing your podcast is really like marketing any other piece of content, we generally recommend social media strategy, having it on your website, if you’re using your social media strategy both put it out there for your company as well as putting it out there for yourself. Make sure you’re creating compelling language and text around it. 

Maybe you could do video or audio intro that you would put in social media about the upcoming podcast. You could also just do regular text or content marketing around that and make sure that you’re tagging your guests. You can help your guests by maybe prepping some content they could share on social media posts as well. We just did a podcast where we cross-promoted it with the guest and then we also both released it on our podcast platforms which gets you out to an even bigger audience but also keeping it on your website. 

We use our podcasts for S.E.O. as do some of our clients and that’s another way to really get your marketing for it. There’s even the option of doing paid ads for your podcast on say a platform like LinkedIn that can be really effective to get it in more people’s feeds so they can learn about it and really take it in and start following it. And I think that’s something else that a lot of people don’t do is just ask for the follow. Like make sure that you’re ending up in people’s lists of podcast every time a new one comes out.

Dan:

Yeah, and I think you mentioned doing S.E.O. We post our podcast episodes on our website. We also always recommend having a transcript of your podcast, right? And there are plenty of services out there that will transcribe your podcast automatically. But putting that transcript on the landing page of the podcast helps Google really understand what that podcast is about so you can better rank in S.E.O.

Taryn:

Yeah and I think part of that also is making sure you have a compelling introduction at the beginning of your post. Because generally the first couple minutes doesn’t really dive into the topic, but people want to know what you’re going to talk about in that post. And so having that introduction to kind of say, hey, this is what we’re talking about, this is who our guest is, really goes a long way toward getting people to want to listen and to take in the entire episode.

And then the last question that we have ’cause we’re gonna keep this, keep this tight today, how long should episodes be and how often should you release episodes?

Dan:

So I’m gonna use one of my favorite answers and say it depends. There’s certainly plenty of podcasts out there that run over an hour on a regular basis. I know I listen to some but then on the opposite end of the spectrum you know you have news podcasts like “Up First,” right? The daily “Up First” every morning is like 10 to 12 minutes just quick snapshot of what’s going on in the news and things like that. So there’s really just a huge spectrum of where you could be. 

I think to start out, best practice is probably to shoot to have your episode land somewhere between 20 and 40 minutes. You know, kind of depending on the content, maybe you discover something in conversation with your post or whatever that you might go longer than like 30 minutes or whatever. But try and keep it under 40 minutes and you know as you learn more about what your audience likes and things like that, you can maybe experiment with a longer podcast or maybe you have a lot of people dropping off, so maybe that’ll tell you, okay, we need to do on the shorter side here. So generally between that 20 and 40 minutes to start out. And then once you have enough data to learn from your audience, you can really decide what that sweet spot is.

Taryn:

I completely agree, you know, I know we often recommend 20 minutes but you find like once you get into it and get talking, it gets a lot easier to maintain that momentum forward. Well, Dan, do you have any last thoughts on podcasts or I mean, I think we pretty much ran the gamut.

Dan:

Yeah, I mean I would say just don’t be afraid to try it, right? It’s a great medium, I think you can get in touch with a lot of people in a lot of different ways to your point earlier. And yeah, definitely try it. It’s not the hardest thing to complete and it’s not the most expensive thing to do.

Taryn:

I agree with that. That’s my advice for podcasting or live streaming, video creation, whatever you’re doing, just jump in, be brave, and the first one’s gonna be hard but it gets a lot easier as you go along. So I think for a lot of people, podcasting might be a really good option, especially for people who don’t enjoy writing or for people who take writing takes a really long time. Sometimes a podcast is a little bit easier to just kind of get your information out there. 

So, well Dan, thank you for joining me today. Thank you for talking about podcasts. If you have any further questions about podcasting or you’re ready to get started, but you’re looking to have some questions answered or for a little bit of help, please feel free to reach out to LISI. We have an entire team dedicated to creating and marketing podcasts for our clients who are interested in that. Our next live stream will be next Friday. It is a Behind the Bio with Julie Ackerman where she interviews really interesting attorneys that she meets throughout her work for LISI, most specifically writing bios for our clients or just in general really interesting attorneys and Go Birds for this Sunday.

Dan:

Yeah, go Birds.