On Patience, Hard Work, and… Pec Implants?
On Patience, Hard Work, and… Pec Implants?
Bumper’s Dan Misener on the mindset required to grow audiences.
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We live in a world that celebrates shortcuts, extreme productivity hacks, cheat codes, and maximum efficiency. Whether it’s sending tweets instead of well-reasoned thinking, fad diets instead of long-term healthy nutrition, or four-hour work weeks instead of working hard to solve interesting problems, let’s face it - too many of us are on a never-ending hunt for quick-fix solutions that avoid the necessity of hard work.
What does this have to do with content strategy and audience growth? A LOT.
Dan Misener’s reputation in the podcast industry as a master of audience growth has come from questioning conventions, avoiding the easy solutions, and doing a lot of hard work to deliver better results. (This might be stretching it, but I feel like Dan is the Jocko Willink of audience growth.) While Dan is a podcast expert, his thinking and lessons apply equally to any type of content from marketers or creators.
“I don't think there's a substitute for putting in the time and doing the work and really understanding who we are making this thing for, why it is good for them, and how we are going to get it in front of them. There are shortcuts. You can go buy downloads. You can go buy views on video platforms. You can go buy followers on social. You can totally do that.”
When Dan talks about buying views or downloads, there are a variety of ways to do this. You can pay companies that guarantee a certain number of views or downloads for your video or podcast. Usually, the tactic is to blast your message in front of as many people as possible until enough people consume the content and the quota is met.
Sometimes, though, it’s more nefarious. It could be people with loads of phones in a warehouse clicking on your content over and over again until the quota is met. Or it could be software automatically pre-loading segments of your content on a website in a way that counts as a view or download, even though it wasn’t a voluntary decision by the end-user.
“Those are shortcuts and easy buttons. This might be the equivalent of empty calories. The thing I find especially troublesome about audience growth shortcuts is that it is incredibly addictive, especially in the world of content from brands.
“Once you’ve bought a hundred thousand views and your boss has seen the report that says a hundred thousand views, when do you stop buying those views? When's it an appropriate time to stop paying for the empty calories? When's the right time to turn off the spigot of cash that goes to the purchased views?”
This is all fascinating and worrying to me. If you’re buying views, listens, or page views, and the second you stop buying them, those views, listens, or page views plummet, it says one of three things:
You are buying fake views.
You are buying views from the wrong people who are not in your target audience and aren’t interested in your content.
Your content isn’t very good. People are sampling and never coming back.
None of these are good.
So if you’re buying audiences, there's a way to tell if it's working. When you turn off the spigot, are the people still there or do they all disappear?
“Are you actually creating value for people? Are they converting once you pay to reach them? Are you actually earning the attention and creating that value for people? Or have you tricked some people into trying something they don’t want? “
Building Muscles vs Getting Pec Implants
Another special gift of Dan’s is his ability to use strange metaphors and analogies to bring ideas to life and make them accessible. For example, his name for a redundancy strategy is “belt and suspenders.” This might be his weirdest analogy yet:
“I could go get pec implants, but when I go to the gym, am I any stronger? What am I really trying to do? My pec implants are not going to help me lift weights.
“The most successful shows are people who have spent the time to build the muscle, not the people who bought the pec implants.”
As bizarre as it is, I love the analogy because pec implants are all about appearances. People often want their content projects to appear successful, even if they’re not. And buying audiences is a way to do that.
For example… you might have put your neck out to make a content project come to life. You might have had to sell a whole group of people, including your boss, on getting budget approvals for a content project. And if an audience doesn’t show up, your job might be on the line. And so… you buy the audience. But once you start, you can’t stop because the numbers will drop precipitously.
The better way to do this is the manage expectations from the start of a project.
Patience is a Content Virtue
There is another reason people buy audiences - a desire for urgent, short-term results.
I hate to continue to be the bearer of bad news, but content is generally not well-suited to urgent, short-term results. It’s exceptionally well-suited to long-term relationships based on trust, which, in pec-implant world means that you not only have to go the gym, but you have to KEEP going to the gym if you want to stay strong. (I’m REALLY stretching this pec implant analogy…)
“Underlying all of it is the need for a degree of patience. Maybe the shortcuts or the easy buttons are a symptom of impatience. In podcasting, shows very rarely grow like a hockey stick. It's very rare to see overnight success, or it's very rare to see shows go viral in a short span of time.
“All of the most successful shows that I have seen have grown slowly and steadily, one listener at a time by making something good, putting it in front of the right people, and then inviting them to try it and hopefully come back for more and more and more. This is an opt-in strategy, this idea of earning people's attention, not by tricking, not by buying, not by stealing, but by earning attention.
“This is not something that is compatible with impatience. If you want to grow sustainably, I think there's, there needs to be a recognition that overnight success is unlikely.”
Dan’s Order of Magnitude Exercise - Setting Expectations Early
So let’s tie this all together.
If we believe that it’s a bad strategy to get pec implants for your content by buying temporary audiences instead of earning long-term audiences, and if we know that building those long-term audiences takes time, patience, and great work, how do we manage these expectations for everyone on the content team (including your boss) from day one?
“I have one trick. One weird tip. People walk in with perhaps unrealistic ideas about what's possible in a short span of time.
“As early as possible, you should ask the question, what does success look like? And you should actually put some goals and numbers behind that. I often find that people, even if they are reluctant to say it, they have a number in mind. And sometimes their boss has a number in mind. And sometimes they don't know what their boss's number is.
“I really like to talk in terms of orders of magnitude.
“Let's play a game. Six months from now, you have 10 listeners. How's that feel?
“Let's go up an order of magnitude. Six months from now, you have a hundred listeners. How does that feel?
“A thousand? Ten Thousand? A hundred thousand? A million? Ten million?
“People often have a natural gut feeling about what order of magnitude is achievable or appropriate. Once I dial into the order of magnitude that feels right, then the conversation turns to what's it going to take to get us to that order of magnitude.
“And then it’s not hard. You can estimate and project into the future with what you know about budget and timelines and existing owned audiences.
“And so if a client says, we want to have a million listeners a year from now, that’s great. Ambitious goal. Let's talk about what it takes to get a million listeners.”
How to Get a Million Listeners to Your Podcast
You’re probably wondering what it actually takes to get to a million listeners, right? In keeping with the topic of patience… building an audience growth plan is the subject of the next newsletter!
Takeaways
Are you buying listens or views? If so, does your audience stick around if you stop paying?
Are you doing the hard work of building muscles to produce great shows and market them effectively? Or are you taking shortcuts and hacks that are the marketing equivalent of pec implants?
Are you under pressure to deliver short-term results that aren’t aligned with the way audiences grow and consume content?
Have you and your team set Order of Magnitude audience expectations for your content?
What’s Earned My Attention Recently
James Clear… On Abs, Not Pecs
James Clear, author of Atomic Habits and the 3,2,1 Newsletter, recently wrote about abs in a similar way to how Dan Misener talks about pec implants - something is clearly in the ether around fitness and health analogies!
“We want solutions, but what we really need are attitudes.
You don't need abs, but rather an attitude of training. You don't need the answer, but rather an attitude of curiosity. You don't need an easier life, but rather an attitude of perseverance.
Attitude precedes outcome."
Crayola is Now a Media Company
Crayola has launched their own studio. “As world leaders in creative self-expression, the establishment of Crayola Studios is a logical next step for us,” said Crayola EVP Marketing, Victoria Lozano.
The Ugly Shoes Now Worth Billions
I was a very early Hoka convert and was ridiculed for YEARS for wearing giant clown shoes that squeaked on floors when they were wet. My kids made fun of me. My wife made fun of me. My co-workers made fun of me. EVERYONE made fun of me for my enormous shoes. These are my current pair:
So imagine how gratifying it was to read this article. And imagine how much MORE gratifying it was to see one of my kids buy “Eggnog-coloured” Hokas this week because they are now “cool.”
Being different than everyone else means you likely won’t get accepted early. But you sure stand out. And with patience and persistence, sometimes the awesome weird stuff goes mainstream.