HubSpot’s Jonathan Barshop on Podcast Growth and Doing Video Right

Jeff Umbro: This is Podcast Perspectives, a show about the latest news in the podcast industry and the people behind it. I'm your host, Jeff Umbro, founder and CEO of the Podglomerate. Joining me today is a Senior Podcast Growth Marketer at HubSpot, Jonathan Barshop. 

He started his podcast career in the newsletter space with a small agency that he co-founded with a friend and has since taken over the audience growth initiatives at HubSpot for their podcast marketing division.

HubSpot as a company sells CRMs and licenses to access those CRMs. So the HubSpot podcast network is unique because their mandate is to act as the top of the funnel to bring people into the HubSpot ecosystem to purchase licenses for their software. 

So on this episode you'll hear about Jonathan's role at HubSpot, what the mandate of this podcast network is all about, what kinds of metrics and strategies Jonathan uses to grow a new show, and also what his perspective is on video podcasting in the year of our Lord 2023. 

Full disclosure, HubSpot is a former client of the Podglomerate and Jonathan and I have worked together closely to launch a handful of shows. So, let's get to the interview.

So, thank you for joining us, Jonathan. How are you? 

Jonathan Barshop: Good, good. 

Jeff Umbro: Can you tell me and the listeners a little bit about the HubSpot Podcast Network - when you started versus where it is today?

Jonathan Barshop: Yeah, so what HubSpot's thesis was, or is, is that they could keep renting land by buying ads on a bunch of different podcasts or trying to get placements on different newsletters and stuff like that. And they're like, why don't we just buy the land? Why don't we just own this? And so we can own the distribution. We can own the messaging behind it and all those things. 

So that was kind of the impetus of the network. And to your point they had had this idea of building a network, but they were like, “we kind of need a staple show and a staple newsletter, et cetera, et cetera, to build off of.” And that was where The Hustle acquisition came in. Because they had basically from day one of the acquisition a built-in audience, a built-in team of expert writers, [and] a built-in team of expert marketers. So they basically started on third base and had these two core pieces. 

So [at this point] they’re like let's build around [these core pieces]. And that's where you see them adding on shows like Entrepreneurs on Fire or Online Marketing Made Easy, just to build out the rest of the network. 

They've also made a few other bets in terms of betting on up-and-coming creators - that's another part of the network is the Creator Network - so that we round up the whole network, [by] (A) hitting on a bunch of different topic areas, but (B) [helping] foster up-and-coming talent. 

Jeff Umbro: How are you promoting HubSpot within this network? 

Jonathan Barshop: The main driver is signups to the CRM because that's the gateway into all the other different products that we have. So within every podcast episode, there's a HubSpot CRM ad. On the YouTube side there's always a video ad [for] the CRM. And so that's sort of our lead driver. 

And then, because we don't sell any ads within our network, we get hit up all the time, like, “hey, can we get a placement on this show” or what have you. And we do that for shows that aren't owned and operated within the HubSpot podcast network. So we leave those creators up to their own devices to fill those slots. 

But HubSpot's sole goal is to just drive CRM signups and to promote other shows within the network, so the pie grows, and then ideally keep funneling those people into the CRM.

Jeff Umbro: So it's a top of funnel element to try and bring people into signups for the CRM. I imagine that every signup makes you guys a bunch of recurring revenue. Is that right? 

Jonathan Barshop:Yeah, that's the idea. 

Jeff Umbro:  Is it working? You guys have had this network since 2021 and presumably you’ll keep doing it. So it's doing something, right? 

Jonathan Barshop: Yeah. I’m not paid enough to know the exact numbers on if it's working or not. I'm mostly goaled on downloads for the network. So in terms of growth, it's working. 

It's a little bit harder in podcast land to actually attribute these downloads to signups [for] the CRM. There are obviously tools out there that can help, but clearly we're still growing the network. We're investing even heavier into video and all these other platforms. So there's no signs of slowing down. So I would assume it's working pretty well.

Jeff Umbro: Are you guys actually tracking how many people are going from audio to the website? Like are you using pixel tracking, Spotify analytics, charitable, or anything for that?

Jonathan Barshop: Yeah. We're using Spotify ad analytics, but again, the data is not the clearest. So I think there are other secondary things that they're looking at too, which is [the] thought leadership they're developing, having an asset that they can then point to, whether it's for marketing [or] sales purposes… and then the brand lift you get from having all these other shows in your orbit: the Amy Porterfields or Donald Millers. There's like a brand halo effect that happens that's not really possible to calculate, but you feel it, if that makes any sense.

Jeff Umbro: Yeah, it does. And I actually think that what you guys are doing with the creator-partners is really fascinating. Could you give us a minute on what that actually is and where people can find more info if they're interested?

Jonathan Barshop: It's kind of evolved over the last year, but initially it started out as: [you would] apply for the network, we’ll go through all the applications, and then whittle down the list and select some of our favorite candidates. That's all dependent on a number of factors. It could be you have launched a show, but if you're in the right category - maybe we need to fill shows about product or product design - within our scorecard that would maybe be marked higher. So there are certain elements that we would factor in to decide which creators make it to the network, which don't.

That's kind of evolved a little bit now. It's more so sourcing these creators. And again, they don't have to have a podcast, but if we find that they're a big Twitter personality and they are talking about a specific niche that we like, or ideally they already have an established show and it's just that perfect fit for our network. We'll actively reach out, go through the negotiation, and then come to terms. 

Jeff Umbro: I wanted to spend a few minutes talking about Podcast Marketing 101 from your point of view. Because, as mentioned before, you really do have this unique take [on] growing shows. 

Everybody should check out Jonathan's Twitter account, it’s @bar5op. You overshare really valuable nuggets of information, and I love it. I'll check it once a week just to see what you're up to. You can see how the HubSpot Podcast Network is operating with cross-promos, or putting their shows on YouTube, or whatever. And they'll actually show the data, and the analytics, and the charts.

In any case, how do you think about growing a show? I know that's a super broad question, but say someone comes to you: they have a show about product marketing, it's very niche, maybe they have a few hundred or a few thousand listeners, what is your first step there?

Jonathan Barshop: It is very dependent on the type of show, but if they are comfortable in front of the camera, if they are willing to look at video as a huge investment and a very long term bet, then I say go for it.

Otherwise, I feel like sticking to audio and maybe just doing what we're doing right here, where we have the video recorded, we can do minimal edits and throw it up on YouTube. That's good enough. But being able to really invest in video, it's a lot of money. It's a lot of energy. It's hard to find great people, all those things.

So I'm always very hesitant to tell people to go into video. So if you're sticking with just audio, I always tell people there's still no magic bullet and there’s still the same tried and true stuff that's always worked. 

So cross promotions are the best “free” option because you're not having to buy anything on another show. You're basically swapping with another show. Ideally, where we see the best conversion - and again this is no surprise - [is] with shows that are familiar with your show or your host. One of the best cross promotions we did last year was with a personal finance show where the host was a massive fan of My First Million and he just gave the best ad read. He basically said, “if I were starting from zero, and I had to figure out a way to build a business, I would go listen to My First Million.” We saw his fans flock over in droves. 

Those are hard to come by, obviously, but as much as you can, try to figure out who those people are that are genuine fans of your work, or who maybe you can start to build a longer term relationship with. These don't have to be the Tim Ferrisses of the world. They don't have to be the biggest names. Find people who are adjacent in your category, build strong relationships with them. 

Same is true of feed drops. Those, you're having a person listen to a full episode of your show, so you'll see higher conversions there. 

Collaboration episodes are another spin on that. We did this with a show called Acquired. We interviewed them on our podcast and then they dropped that in their feed. But there are a lot of different ways to go about it. So those are all the kinds of tried-and-true methods. 

For the paid side, it's bleak. There are just very few options out there that are cost effective and don't feel like you're getting fake downloads.

Really what it comes down to is just creating great content that's worth people sharing and worth people talking about, laced on top of like these other cross-promotional efforts.

Jeff Umbro: I want to actually go back to the paid spend aspect of what you just mentioned. One thing that I love - and Jonathan and I worked together a handful of times over the years - you have some of the best spreadsheets that I've ever seen. It's funny what I nerd out over now… 

We do this now as well, but you basically pull all of the data from these different campaigns that you're running for paid cross promo, [and] for anything else you pull as many data points as you can, to see what's really working effectively for you to grow the shows.

So I was hoping that we could spend a minute just thinking through: what are some of the data points you would pay attention to with a cross promo or with a paid spend that would make you say: “this was valuable or this wasn't?” 

Jonathan Barshop: Well actually, I learned most of this from you, so I feel like I'm kind of like teaching you what you taught me.

But the main things I look at - and this is all tracked in Chartable - are like top level: conversion rates. So how many people heard that ad and then went and downloaded your episode in your feed.

Then a layer below that - and this is what Jordan Harbinger kind of exclusively tracks - dollar per new converted device. So one of the other metrics in Chartable is number of converted devices. If you type in the amount you spent on that paid ad, or even if let's just say you were running a cross promo and there's no dollar amount tied to it.

You can calculate what you would have spent for that cross promo and you can type that in and it'll shoot out a number of the dollars that it would have cost, or the dollars it costs to get that new listener over as a subscriber, or as a downloader. 

So those are the two main metrics. Then there are a few other things you can also dig into like the number of downloads and stuff like that. Those are all tertiary things that I'll look at, but the main things are those two main ones: conversion rate and dollar per new converted device.

Jeff Umbro: What's a dollar per converted device that you guys would look at as a success? And I know it'll vary based on the show, but very broadly speaking?

Jonathan Barshop: The general range I use is like, anything above $10 is usually in the red, not a great buy. If it's well above $15, $20, you'll see some that are crazy like $50 to $100. Those are not great buys. So anything in the $5 to $10 range is pretty good. Anything below that is extraordinary.

Jeff Umbro: Historically speaking, from my point of view, we'll always have one or two shows that will get under a dollar or something, and then several shows that'll be right under ten, and then several where it just takes a little bit to find the right recipe. But oftentimes, when it is a really low number, there may be other factors contributing to why. Or it could just be that good of a show, and that good of a market fit. 

But in any case, there's a lot of really interesting things that people will look at in that regard. When you mentioned before that sometimes it looks like you're buying downloads, I think what you may mean there is that sometimes you can buy an ad spot that will drive a lot of impressions, but they may not be the most retentive listeners.

So what are you looking for in a paid spend in terms of tracking? If people have stuck around as opposed to if they just show up and then disappear?

Jonathan Barshop: This is also tough to track because you sort of have to do these tests in silos. If I'm running a cross promotion at the same time as I'm testing one of these podcast player buys or whatever, you have to do like a lift survey or a lift analysis after the fact to [see], “okay, we were at this baseline, we ran this test, and then after the fact, it was at this baseline.” 

Now, that's like the easiest way to describe it, but it is pretty messy because there's always so many things going on. It's easier to track for smaller shows just because you can see pretty substantial bumps with those smaller shows. But when you're in the range of 20, 50, 100 million downloads a month, there are just so many different factors at play that it's really tough to be able to track that.

But the simplest way to describe it is [you’re running] a test with nothing else running at the same time, if possible, and just see, “this is where we were at point A, where are we at point B.”

Jeff Umbro: Prime example of that: We're running a paid campaign for this show. It's on one particular podcast app. This is a brand new show. We've never done any prOmotion for it outside of PR. We're going to be able to see how many downloads we had on the app before this campaign and then after. And then we'll be able to see a month from now how many downloads we have from that app. So it will be a really good test to see on a clean feed that is siloed, how impactful different marketing techniques are.

Jonathan Barshop: On that point, that is a lot easier to track when you're running a campaign on a specific podcast player. You can see in the background, “this is how many downloads we were getting on that podcast player to begin, this is how many we're getting now.” But those buys are few and far between. There's only so many podcast players that even had that inventory. 

So going through these other plays to grow your show, you have to triangulate a few different data points to try to figure out: where were we before? Where are we now?

Jeff Umbro: One hundred percent. On that note, one of the things that I was curious [about] from your point of view is: if I'm a new podcaster and launching a show, we just went over a lot of the organic growth methods that people can use - feed drops, interviews, collaborations, cross promos - what would you suggest I do if I had $1,000 to spend, versus $10,000 to spend, versus $100,000 to spend?

Jonathan Barshop: Okay so if I was starting with $1000 to $5000, I would - and this would be at the core of each of these dollar amounts - is a giveaway of some sorts.

So I use a tool called UpViral where I can make a very clear landing page and flow to get people to take action. So the first page is “sign-up here.” The next page is “take these actions [and] you earn points” and whoever has the most points by the end of this walks away with a pair of Apple headphones or whatever that incentive is. Amazon gift cards, Apple headphones, or Apple products in general are pretty lucrative. 

You'll get a lot of people who come in who are just there to win the prize. And so you have to sift through that. But you can get them to take actions beyond just following on Apple and Spotify. You can get them to leave reviews. You can get them to share it with friends, all that stuff. It's not as clean as I'm making it sound, but it's at least a pretty solid way to get people in the front door. 

And then on top of that, if I had extra budget, I would focus mostly on feed drops, paid feed drops, and paid ads on other shows that are in either adjacent categories or have audiences that could transition over to your show.

Jeff Umbro: That's literally the problem that we try [to] solve every day. And I know you're in the same boat. There's a million answers for that, many of which make sense and some of which don't. You don't always know until after you've done it, but the giveaway idea is a really interesting one and something that you guys do better than anyone. Everybody follow Jonathan for the next giveaway if you want your own set of AirPods.

The other thing that you all do at HubSpot that I think puts you a little bit ahead of the game is how you all are integrating with YouTube, which we all know is kind of a new idea in the podcasting space. Very old to some, but generally a new idea. 

At the heart of it, people generally, historically anyway, have designed audio properties, which does not always translate in a clean way to YouTube for video.

But if you had three suggestions for podcasters that are audio only who are interested in moving to YouTube, what would they be?

Jonathan Barshop: I think first of all, you really have to break down the structure of your show. Jay Clouse has a whole post and video about this where he talks about how he totally regrets not starting with video first because he basically had to re-engineer his entire show to be video first. 

And the things he's mentioning in this video are: the cold open, the intro, the hook at the beginning of the video are the most important things. And so you kind of have to build your show somewhat around that. With podcasting in general, specifically on YouTube, you'll always see a pretty massive drop off over those first few minutes. That's just table stakes is making the opening interesting and juicy so people stick around as long as possible. 

I think another thing that Jay does really well - and there's a few other shows that come to mind. I think My First Million is actually not great about this. But it's making sure you're outlining the episode super tight. 

One show that I'm keeping a pretty close eye on right now is called The Our Future Podcast. It's with guys who actually did clips for My First Million in the past. Their company was acquired by Morning Brew and now they have a podcast. What they do really well is they have their cold open, they have their hook to start, and you can tell they're giving you just the right amount of content for that period of time, broken into two very clean segments, and then they're out. 

Throughout that, you can also tell that they're formatting certain segments within those segments to be cut for short form. What I mean by that is they start their episode with a cold open, they'll go into the first topic, which is usually with them breaking down someone who's under the age of 25 who's crushing it in business, and then they'll do a full breakdown of that person. And throughout that, they'll start that segment with [something like]: “so this guy's 25, but no one knows who he is, and he's making six-figures.” And you can tell they're formatting this for short-form to be cut up, versus if both of us were talking about it at a high level here, we wouldn't really be thinking about it in that format.

So they're taking it [from] so many different layers and that just makes it so much easier in the post-production process as a listener. I'm just getting the quick hits, the stuff that actually is important. And obviously they're throwing in their banter here and there. But you can just tell how much upfront work goes into the research, the prep, the way in which they say certain things.

Not enough people really focus on that. Obviously it puts a lot more work on the front end, but it takes out so much work on the back end.

Jeff Umbro: Those are all really valid points.I think you saying what you just said underestimates the value that that will bring to people, because so many people have thought so little about video podcasting in the way that you have.

So what kind of successes have you all seen? In the video space in particular, what makes you all happy? What metrics are you looking at?

Jonathan Barshop: Obviously there are the vanity metrics: views, subscribers, follows, whatever platform you're on. But honestly I don't look at that too close. It's great when we see a video pop off on TikTok, or Shorts, or whatever. And you can see that in the backend data, it’s driving subscribers. 

But I'm always very hesitant to say that all these subscribers and followers that we're getting are great long-form listeners or viewers. People who are scrolling through TikTok or Shorts - are they really trying to then go listen to a full length episode? I'm just thinking of my own patterns. There's been a handful of instances where I'm swiping through, I see a podcast clip and I'm like, “oh, this is so juicy. I need to go listen to the full length episode.” But those are like pretty few and far between.

I know that now TikTok and YouTube are building functionality to where you see a clip from a podcast, then you can press a button, and it'll take you to that full length episode. But again, I'm very mindful of the fact that people who are consuming short form, they're not just going to jump to long form unless there's something super compelling they need to listen to.

All that’s to say, there's data that shows these are driving a lot of views, and subscribers, and stuff like that. I'm not convinced that those are all great long-form listeners or viewers. But I think what it really is, and [we have] the luxury of [a] budget to play around with, I think it's just brand awareness in general. The fact that Sam, Sean, the hosts of Marketing Against the Grain, all these folks are just on these different platforms and constantly, showing up [on] people's feeds... It might not be the first time they see the video, it might not be the third time, and it might not be the 18th time, but hopefully by the 50th time, someone who sees a short form piece of content, they'll be like, “okay, I'll go check it out.”

A lot of anecdotal man-on-the-street-type stuff I've heard is, “oh yeah, we found you through these different forms.” And I'm not able to track the listener journey exactly, but I have a feeling it's just that: it's the 18th time that they saw [a clip] that was finally what they needed to go listen to the show.

And then the most important part, the show is so good that they couldn't leave. It's like you have to have great content on the back end to keep people around.

Jeff Umbro: Anecdotally, I used to run a LinkedIn newsletter, which by the time anyone is listening to this, maybe I'm running one again… but I can track six figures in business that came directly from that newsletter, even though, to me, as the writer, it was rare that I would ever hear that anybody was reading it at all. I'd get a few comments and emails every week or two, but it was a little deflating because I'm like: “I'm doing all of this work and not really seeing much.” And a year in I can directly tell you that four different clients found me through that newsletter. It was really gratifying.

But it took a while to really get there. And that is the thing that I notice more than anything: you get brands coming into the space on podcasting in general, but specifically on YouTube or socials, and they don't put the time or the work into really seeing the results. 

Anyway, Jonathan, thank you so much for the time today. We will have you back one hundred percent. I think we just scratched the surface on what you and I can talk about, but [I] really appreciate the time today. 

Jonathan Barshop: Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Jeff Umbro: Thank you again to Jonathan for joining us for this episode. You can find him on Twitter @bar5hop. Seriously, that's a real suggestion to follow. He shares tons of info that I'm sure any listener to this show would find valuable. You can also check out hubspot.com/podcastnetwork or creators.hubspot.com to learn more about what we talked about in this episode. 

For more podcast related news, info, and takes, you can follow me on Twitter @JeffUmbro. Podcast Perspectives is a production of the Podglomerate. If you are looking for help producing, distributing, or monetizing your podcast, you can find us at thepodglomerate.com, shoot us an email at listen@thepoglomerate.com, or follow us on all social platforms @podglomerate. 

This episode was produced by Chris Boniello and Henry Lavoie. And thank you to our marketing team, Joni Deutsch, Madison Richards, Morgan Swift, Annabella Pena and Vanessa Ullman. And a special thank you to Dan Christo.

Thanks for listening and I will catch you next week.