The 3 Podcast Types That Actually Work with Mason Cosby

[00:00:00] Dustin: Welcome back to the seven figure lead podcast. This is truly a very special episode. I recorded this episode with Mason Cosby, and initially it was for registrants some private content for a huge event we have coming up. And I decided this is too good. And it's going to whet your appetite and you're going to like, I totally need to be at this event because if this is the type of content that's going to be featured, like I know this is, this is the place to be.
Dustin: So. Please tune in for this episode where Mason talks about the only three types of podcasts. There really are. And what I think was amazing is like how to actually measure the success of your podcast. And there are definitely parallels to each of these three strategies for guesting as well. So whether you have your own podcast, you're looking at podcast guesting.
Dustin: I just, you know, as someone who's been doing this for years. I had a lot of light bulb moments. I was like, this is so good. I'm going to release this as a, as a podcast for everyone to see. So if you want access to lots of other speakers like Mason, [00:01:00] including Mason and the full version of this you need to register for our pod.
Dustin: Profits summit. When you're hearing this, it may not be open yet. This is going to be something that we open up in January 2025 and for registration. And then the event will actually go live in February. We are pre recording some of the amazing content with our speakers, including this content that you're going to get access today on the.
Dustin: Seven figure leap podcast, but go to seven, three leap. com. If you're not already on our email list, you really need to be for lots of reasons, but especially to make sure that you're the first in the door. When we open up registration for the pod profit summit, 2025, I'm extremely excited for it in the meantime, enjoy this amazing episode with Mason.
Dustin: [00:02:00] Welcome back to the pod profit summit. I'm really honored with our session right now to be joined by Mason Cosby. So Mason runs a really cool, unique company, as you can see with this shirt and hat called scrappy ABM which he will explain what ABM account based marketing actually means sort of as a preface to what he's going to talk about specific to podcasting today.
Dustin: But Mason and I met through the story brand community. He's a former story brand guide. Just a really smart guy doing some really impressive things with a relatively new business, and he has a very niche and effective podcast. And so what he's going to teach us today is how to know if your podcast is working, right?
Dustin: Like, how do you measure success as a podcaster? So whether you have a podcast and you probably have that question or you're thinking about starting a podcast, you should be asking this question. So we've got Mason here to share his experience and knowledge about that. So Mason, welcome. I would love for you to maybe just.
Dustin: Take the mystery away of explaining what ABM is all about. And I'd love for you to hop right into your topic of how to know if we were [00:03:00] being successful with our podcast efforts.
Mason: Well, first, Justin, thanks so much for having me and yeah, excited to just kind of dig in specifically as we think about account based marketing.
Mason: So, if you are a B2C business I'm going to actually save a lot of your time. I have nothing for you. Account based marketing is exclusive to B2B. So as you think about, The, even the terminology account based marketing, it is focused on the companies or accounts that are your best fit customers.
Mason: So that sounds really basic and. It is in theory. It's very difficult in practice because most of the time marketing programs today and have historically been built around lead generation. So it's how do we get as many contacts in our database? And then from those contacts that come to our database, then we pass all of these leads to sales and then sales does everything in their power To get meetings booked and then they kind of force them through the pipeline and then they ended up closing them and they may not have actually been a good fit in the first place, but they were leads that were here.
Mason: So we're going to take those leads and then CS's job, which stands for [00:04:00] customer success. So the success team or the service team's job is to hold on to them for dear life, to try to keep them around for as long as possible.
And everyone hates this. No one, like literally no one likes it because sales is like, wow, these leads are crap and marketing feels like they're underappreciated.
Mason: CS hates sales because. They closed really bad fit customers and then the customers hate CS and your company because you shouldn't close them in
the first place because you actually can't help them. So, what account based marketing does is instead of focusing on everyone, it says, well, who's our best fit customer and who's actually the best kind of people that we can work with?
Mason: And then what if we stop doing things? To engage people that weren't those people and then only did things to engage these specific people. And what I like about account based marketing is it moves from persona to person or from like ICP, which stands for ideal client profile to companies. Like, these are the clients we want to work with.
Mason: So I like this approach because you literally [00:05:00] look at a list and you're like, these are the companies we want to work with. And everybody's like, great. We're all agreed. Let's go get them. So from an efficiency perspective. If done well, decimates every other kind of strategy, like 70 percent increase in pipeline growth, like from a, from a value perspective, 70 percent increase in pipeline velocity, 70 percent increase in sales team satisfaction, 70 percent increase in customer lifetime value, like 70 plus across all these stats.
Mason: The challenge is for most people I framed it as when done well where most people get messed up on this is they don't know what their best fit customer is. They don't know who their best fit customer is. So if you're super, super early stage, I don't recommend ABM as a starting point, ABM works exceptionally well when again, you're a B2B company.
Mason: You've got someone dedicated to sales, typically, typically, and I'll outline an exception, but typically not the founder. So typically not founder led sales you've got at [00:06:00] least an average contract of 50, 000 at least. And there's an exception to that as well, which I'll outline here in just a moment. You've got a clear market focus.
Mason: So one of our clients had a total addressable market, meaning every person that could possibly close of 500 companies because they worked in the compliance software space for specifically government run utilities of specific sized cities. That's a niche of a niche of a niche of a niche. Yeah. So like.
Mason: That was, that was the program. We were just like, all right, well, we'll go after these 500 accounts. And then the other component just for consideration is typically longer than a 90 day sales cycle. So if you match B2B dedicated sales, 50, 000 average contract value, 90 day sales cycle, clear market focus, and then the potential to expand the customer longterm, you're a great fit for ABM the asterisks on two things.
Mason: Would be one. When you think about account based program, you can actually take an account based [00:07:00] program and apply that to podcasting, which is what we'll talk about here in just a moment. And if you are in that boat founder led sales is actually exceptionally great when running an account based podcast kills it.
Mason: And I'll walk through some of my stats here in just a moment. The next component is specifically that clear market focus. Like if you have a total gross market of 500 accounts, why would you run anything else? Like you can literally just like.
Dustin: What do you do with random content on YouTube and doing Twitter?
Dustin: It was like, why? Yeah. You only have 500 customers. Go get them. Right. Yes. And I'm going to let Mason run with his teaching here, but I guess there's a, there's a quick interjection. I never heard of this term. And I love it. Like I'm like, I fell in love with it. As soon as you started describing, I'm like, this is like, How I think, you know, this is how I think about podcast guesting.
Dustin: This is how I think about my own kind of small business growth. It's really about being intentional and saying, this is what I want and getting clear on that, which is hard, right? You got to do that work to get clear on what you
want. And then you set individual specific targets and then you have something very specific to [00:08:00] pursue with your content plan, with your messaging, with your, with your energy, right.
Dustin: Versus spraying and praying and quote unquote, branding. And like, this is very much in alignment with my ethos, even though, I'm not a B2B, you know, I am B2B, but I'm not in this like sort of 50, 000 up sort of long tail sales cycle. I still love this approach in general. And I love how he's going to tie it to podcasting as a, as a strategy.
Dustin: So with that said, Mason, yeah, please, continue to enlighten us.
Mason: Yeah. So many people. They look at podcasting. They're like, I should go start a podcast because that looks awesome. Like, I get to make cool content. I get to interview cool guests. But the challenge is a couple of things. 1, they don't actually know how to measure success, which is 1 of the actual top 3 reasons why ABM sorry, why podcast programs fail is just They get going and they're like, I don't actually know what the goal is.
Mason: I'm quickly all in the other two reasons why it fails, a lack of consistency. So I'm sure this is talked about a ton and should be talked about a bunch [00:09:00] today, but just like 90 percent of shows don't get past episode three. And I can't tell you, we have a podcast on one of our business and our highest churn is actually on the onboarding process.
Mason: Because people will commit and then they're like, wait, I have to record seven episodes in two weeks to get the show launched. Like, well, yeah, like we launched with three episodes from there. You have four episodes, so you've got a month of inventory. So it's a really heavy upfront lift, but then you actually get yourself some breathing room.
Mason: You just can't do it. Like they literally just are like, I just cannot commit to this. And I like, it's not a surprise. Like I said, first call, I need you to commit two weeks. I'm going to own you for two weeks and like produce you and we'll get it. We'll get it done. And then the rest of your life forever is easier.
Mason: So that's the first component. Just a lack of consistency. Second reason podcast programs typically fail would just be a poor promotional strategy. So for just very quick context, my address promotional strategy in the past year, scrappy IBM has launched from [00:10:00] scratch about 14 shows.
Mason: Six of them are in the top 10 percent of globe globally listened to shows. One of them is in the top 0. 5 percent and it's consistently in the top 10 of us based marketing podcasts. So when I talk about promotional strategy the way that this show grew was actually Not to do with the content at first, like you need to have good content to like actually keep people around.
Mason: But the way that it grew is they just killed it on promotion. Like they had an intentional strategy on how to raise awareness for the show. Cause fun fact, podcast search engines are atrocious, like the worst. So. If you want to be
easily discovered, it's not going to be because someone typically stumbles on you and Spotify, unless you're looking for a very specific niche term, typically, if they find you in a different channel, and then they go get depth on your show.
Mason: So, again, those are the 3 reasons lack of consistency for promotional strategy and unclear [00:11:00] measurement. We're going to talk through for the rest of this is. Like how do you actually then measure success? And I think
that there are only three kinds of podcasts and then we'll dictate how you should effectively measure success.
Mason: Perfect. So as we think through the three types of podcasts, I'll just go ahead and quickly outline them. One is the content engine. Two is the public figure podcast. And then three is the account based podcast. So when we think about the content engine, this is what likely most people start with when they think about building a show is they want to build a show primarily because they want to create really, really great content.
Mason: The thing that, and you should, if you don't know him, everybody go follow him. His name is Justin Simon. He created a distribution first framework, and I love this framework. That's very helpful for actually how to think about it. Another guy would be Steven G Pope. That's done a wonderful job on content creation and content framework generation.
Mason: But the idea is fairly simple. Most subject matter experts are really good at [00:12:00] talking. They just are like, they're good at communicating their ideas. That's why they're such a matter experts and typically inevitably become thought leaders. So to create content, it is exponentially easier for them to hop on a quick recording and talk.
Mason: Like, that's it. They just share their information. From there, what happens now with most technologies is an auto generated transcript. And then from there, a content marketer or a content writer, or someone that is a specialist in content can take the transcript and turn that into a piece of blog content or numerous pieces of blog content.
Mason: And then from there, they can create a variety of social posts, and then from there, they can create articles. A variety of email newsletters. And then from there, they can also look at the long form video, edit it, and actually create a long form YouTube video. And then from there, they can actually create short clips that get posted on YouTube and tick tock for as long as [00:13:00] that's still around Instagram, LinkedIn, like, and what you end up doing is from 20 or 30 minutes of it.
Mason: Matter experts time, you can end up creating one long form video. Typically two to four clips that you would then create in multiple formats so they can be distributed across every platform. You can create at least one piece of blog content in one email and likely for every clip that you can create, you can create written content that goes along with that clip.
Mason: So again, one 20, 30 minute episode turns into typically. 18 to 25 pieces of content. So then how do you measure success? It's actually primarily on content output and by reach of that content separate from the podcast. Now, I
think most of you are probably thinking What about downloads? I hate downloads of the metric of success.
Mason: Like quick context, my show. Oh, goodness. How many [00:14:00] downloads of my show again? Typically, I'm getting about 200 or 300 downloads per episode. And that's really good. I have a very niche show.
Dustin: This is the little secret, I think, of podcast hosting is, you know, with. It's like the 1 percent of the 1 percent of the ones you, you hear about, right?
Dustin: Everyone, I wouldn't know Joe Rogan or Amy Porterfield or whatever. For one, those guys generally had platforms before the podcast became popular to Mason's original point of promotion. And two for the types of podcasts we're all talking about, which are generally business oriented, B2B subject matter,
you know, niche sort of podcasts.
Dustin: Yeah. These numbers aren't big. And so if the content strategy is. The views or the download or the views the impressions, the reach is the goal. It actually happens mostly through the non podcast content that comes out of the podcast, which is what you're saying, right?
Mason: Yeah. And I'll just quickly read off some stats from Buzzsprout.
Mason: So Buzzsprout is a large hosting distribution platform. You can Google this and just say like. Let's sprout average [00:15:00] podcast downloads. It's like top 1 percent get 4, 730 downloads within the first seven days. So the top 1 percent of podcasts, I was talking with somebody that was thinking about launching a full podcast series and he worked at a fairly large brand.
Mason: And then he said, the executive leadership team won't approve us to create more content until episode one gets 10, 000 downloads. Like not hypothetically, I was like, I, you understand that like top 1%, less than 5, 000. So like, that's the starting point top 5 percent would be 1, 099 top 10 percent or 467 top 25 percent or 111 in the top 50 percent of podcasts get 28.
Mason: So like
Dustin: above average, if you're getting 30 downloads, basically. Yeah. Yes.
Mason: So it helps to put it in perspective. That's why I, as a quick heads up, will actually never measure downloads as a matter of success, because the other component [00:16:00] is in order to actually generate a download, someone has
to follow you and turn on auto downloads, which you can ask for, and that is a helpful thing to ask for the other thing that I've seen, and it's actually different based Spotify does this differently.
Mason: Apple does this differently. And then all of the web browsers measure a download differently, but it is typically they're That they have to listen to every single second from beginning to end. Of the episode for it to then qualify as a download, unless it's an IAB download, which has actually been disbanded, but this was a few months back and it was based on if you were on a web browser and you were on that web browser for a minute, it would then count as a download.
Mason: So if you're in podcast hosting platforms, Full length episode, if you're in a web browser, it's one minute on page, which to also be clear, one minute on page does not mean that anyone even pressed play. So as I have now unpacked this downloads incredibly unreliable metric for success, radically [00:17:00] unreliable.
Mason: So when you think about metric success, it is typically reach in the external platforms. And then what you want to do is benchmark your downloads as your primary metric of success. Because what I do see is when you look at downloads, downloads within the first hour of your episode going live shows you how many people are subscribed to your show.
Mason: And that is a helpful metric to track. Overtime, wow, that got really nerdy really quick. So good though, man, that was, I think it's important to do that deep dive because I think you're going to get into the other two types of podcasts. But I think the default is I want to do a podcast so I can get downloads and get more listeners and I'm going to grow my business with it.
Dustin: And of course, that has some relevance. But I think you've painted a very clear picture of what that really means, which I think is important for people to understand. Yes. And again, most people will end up building a content engine because it is. Probably one of the best use cases for podcasting, just to put it super bluntly.
Mason: If you think about it again, input device, I'll [00:18:00] actually just make it really simple. Most content marketers to create content, interview a subject matter expert to then turn that into a blog. That's how most people do it. All in recommending, press record, upload to Spotify. That's the whole difference.
Mason: So you can do that. So that's first podcast approach. Second podcast approach is what I refer to as the public figure podcast. If you think about distribution channels, like social and email and webinars and all these other different channels for distribution, they can create. Exponentially great reach, but it's relatively, typically speaking, shallow, like I can't make a fully completed thought on social because I will literally run out of characters.
Mason: So you just can't so there is a lack of nuance that is typically. Available in these, in these larger channels, so what people that already have very large followings, as you already outlined, someone like any border field the client that we work with, that's in the top 0. 5%. His name [00:19:00] is Jay. Like, he has a conference every year between his conferences.
Mason: He has 30, 000 people attend virtually. So, like, good following. And that's like, yeah. Sorry, I'm going to get really nerdy. The average person is in each conference for eight hours live. So like large following, very actively engaged audience. When we launched his podcast, we took an already actively engaged audience in a shallow medium and took them to a medium with significant depth.
Mason: And when we looked at it through that lens, it created what I call casual consumers. And converted them into raving fans. So, Jay already had a pretty good, like, fan base from all of his speaking engagements. He's like, this turned it up to 11. And he now has people that post about him all the time on his podcast episodes.
Mason: And then the other component that this turned into for his business is his, he now releases about 5 episodes a week, which is ridiculous. But they're all [00:20:00] somewhere in the ballpark of like 6 to 10 minute episodes. So relatively short, relatively easy to consume. Hmm. And what he has now found is a direct correlation from when he launched the podcast to the expansion revenue within his existing customer base, because his customers are now spending every single day with him specifically.
Mason: And it's the easiest way to scale the founder's reach and brand, because you record once. And then it distributes to thousands. So if you have an existing following, but it's shallow and you're looking for greater depth, that's the value of a public figure podcast. If you were to measure anything on downloads, it is public figure podcast.
Mason: That is the only thing. Because it is hopeful I would also look at other mediums and seeing specifically does across the board, our audience growth
increase. So do I see an increase in LinkedIn followers? Do I see an increase in our LinkedIn or our newsletters along those lines that you see [00:21:00] audience growth significantly isolating all of their variables?
Mason: If you're like, we weren't doing a podcast. And then we launched the podcast and then everything else went up. Crazy idea, probably the podcast. So you can measure on that. And then it is also a social reach because what has ended up happening for Jay is he always struggled to know what to say in these social channels because he's like, I just want new content in my brain with the podcast.
Mason: He knows new content every day. So he just kind of posts a clip or like a thought from the podcast is like, Hey, go check out the podcast. So it's actually created a great flywheel for him to drive his audiences to specific capture points. That is really the primary ways in which you would measure a public figure podcast would just be specifically audience growth overall across all channels.
Mason: And then if you wanted to measure, it would be downloads. And then it just depends on the platform that you're using, because depending on your platform, there may be others. Things like impressions, reach clicks [00:22:00] there. Every platform is a little bit different on what they can and can't measure. And then the final thing that I didn't know until probably the past eight months, it's just like log in, like log into specifically like the apple podcast hosting platform because apple actually has specific analytics that are in their analytics platform that don't port back over to your buzzsprout or your speaker or your whatever else to do that for both apple and Spotify.
Mason: And then inevitably, potentially also YouTube, because YouTube is making a pretty significant podcast play. So that's the second form. Before I get into my favorite.
Dustin: Before we get into three, you want to just really quickly recap one and two from like, here's what I called it, and here's what it's good for.
Dustin: Because I made notes, but I want to kind of hear it from you. And then we'll get into three, which is really your special sauce. Yes.
Mason: So content engine, primary purpose. Is you need an input device through which you can post produce a mass amount of content. You would measure primarily on content output.
Mason: And what I mean by this is specifically, how many assets do we create as the primary [00:23:00] metric of success? Some people will hate that because they're like, it's just a volume game. And it's like, sorry, I have this new framework that I've recently learned. It's actually not that new, but it's just like more, better new.
Mason: And for most people in the quality versus quantity debate, They don't have enough quantity to understand what quality is. So like, just do more, most of what we've had, a couple of things will be good and be like, well, why was that one good? Analyze it, do more of that. But like, people are like, I only post once a week.
Mason: Like, I really want to make sure I'm quality over quantity. Dumb. Post more, like figure out what works, then do more of it. Sorry, I get really passionate about that. I like that. That's Content Engine. Public figure podcast is you have an existing audience that is a shallow, casual consumer and you want to convert them into raving fans because of the depth that is provided through a podcast.
Mason: Again, primary metric of success, audience reach, audience growth, downloads, anything else your podcast hosting platform will provide you. And the other thing I [00:24:00] should have mentioned would be charts. Chartable recently disappeared. And that was the primary way that people measured pod chaser is a new charting platform that I have seen and will help you understand where your show is even ranking in your category.
Mason: And for public figure podcasts, it's helpful to be like, I'm in the top 3 top 3 podcasts. Like, it gives you an extra layer of authority and credibility. That's externally validated and then the other 1 would be a tool called listen notes. Listen notes is a podcast search engine, but also tells you global rankings.
Mason: So like, for example, my show is in the top 10 percent of globally listened to shows. So I'm trying to get people on my show, whereas I'm trying to build my authority. That's a really helpful thing. Just like call out like 10 percent of the globe that listens to podcasts, listens to
Dustin: mine. Pretty neat, like the charts or the list note score is sort of the equivalent.
Dustin: If this is new to you, it's sort of like I'm an Amazon bestseller in my very [00:25:00] specific niche, but right. You know, like I'm a, but you know, for one minute of one day, I was the number one, you know, underwater,
underwater basket weaving book on, but you know, it's a credibility marker and these are more, to me, more meaningful and consistent than the example I just gave.
Dustin: Right. Like, and you'd be, you'll be surprised as a podcast host, you know, maybe won't now that you've learned from Mason, some of the true numbers, but like, it doesn't take that much to become top 10%. It's mostly consistency and actually publishing your thing. And then getting into that top five, 1%, of course, those become more difficult, but how cool is it to even say I'm in the top five, I'm a top 5 percent podcast.
Dustin: , with the right strategy is he starting to outline like you can totally do that. So, this is really good. I'm excited to hear your thoughts , on this third option, because the first two, I think are what most people I think most people think of option one, anyone who's a little more.
Dustin: Mature or more of a veteran in their business or already has an established audience is probably leaning on number 2 a lot. Like, man, I just need to go deeper with my people in various forms and fashions. And as [00:26:00] you talked about some of that's consumption. Some of that may also be relationship building, right?
Dustin: Like, I, I talk, I interview my top clients, like that's a way to go deeper with them. And then with the people that they know, which again, and I, and just keep little editorial, I think I started the seven figure lead podcast probably with bucket one, like, Hey, I'm just going to create content and get downloads, you know, like most of us do.
Dustin: And we do some of that. But I think so far we'll, we'll hear what number three is so far. The thing that I've definitely got the most value from is number two. So I walked into a room in a conference two weeks ago and someone's like, I loved your interview with Dennis. You on the, you know, blah, blah, blah.
Dustin: I'm like, Oh, you listen to my show. He's like, yeah, I think I started following you like on LinkedIn. But when, when I saw your show, I started listening and I feel like you're like my best friend and my best business friend or whatever. I, we never met. And so I think there's a lot of, a lot to be said for this kind of public figure depth of relationship.
Dustin: So anyway, Mason, yeah, I'm excited to hear number three and your take on that.
Mason: Yeah. So admittedly, number three is my favorite because it creates [00:27:00] the most predictability in pipeline generation and revenue generation. So if you're going to build an account based marketing program and you are very early stage and, but you've got a clear market fit and like, you know, where you serve best, I don't recommend doing EBM program as you'd read online.
Mason: We help build those for some of our clients, but they're typically in that 10 to 50 million range. So like large organizations. For our smaller clients that are in the like one to three or three to 10 range, we actually recommend a podcast. And I'll tell a quick story of how I unintentionally built a podcast that generated a million dollars in revenue annually and has so done so for the past three years.
Mason: So pretty predictable. I launched a podcast called the marketing ladder that was focused on how to build a marketing career. I then interviewed people that were actively hiring in the pitch to get them on the show was relatively simple. Hi, I run a career focused on how do you build a marketing career?
Mason: It looks like you're [00:28:00] hiring. I'd love to interview you, understand how you went from here to here in your career journey. And then I'd love to plug the roles you're hiring for. And then I'll help send talent your way, basically let listen to the show. Cause people that listen to the show are typically looking for a new job.
Mason: Unsurprisingly, people that were trying to hire loved the idea of free promotion for their, for their roles. So I ended up over the course of about a year and a half or two years interviewing 120 chief marketing officers and VPs of marketing or like agency owner founders. Really helpful. What I didn't anticipate.
Mason: I like genuinely just wanted to do that because I was trying to figure out how to build my career and I thought it would be interesting and I was my audience. I happen to work agency though. So it ended up happening. Is people would really struggled with talent and like, golly, I just need help. Like right now I was like, well, I sent a bunch of people your way and they're like, yeah, but like the interview process just takes a while.
Mason: Like, I just need somebody that can like get up and running quickly. I'm probably looking for an agency that can do this, this, and this. [00:29:00] We do this, this, and this, do we talk last year, our sales team, they're like, that'd be amazing. And what it turned into is because people liked and trusted me
because I had done everything in my power to help them when they needed help with their, you know, Marketing programs, and I ended up looking for an agency.
Mason: What often happens, you were like, Hey, Mason, do you know somebody that can do this, this, and this? And I unintentionally became this like massive connector. And what ended up happening? I was like, wow, I could do this intentionally. Like I could just say who are our best fit customers and then get them onto the show.
Mason: And the more I did research, what I learned is that roughly 70 to 80 percent of people will say yes to a podcast invite. So if you think about that in context, if you're doing like cold outbound to get meetings, you're looking at like, if you're amazing and incredible, like a 5 percent conversion rate.
Mason: But you change it from I'd like to book you for a discovery call to I'd like to hear about your journey and [00:30:00] suddenly, what is that a 400 percent increase? It's actually great in that. I'm not going to do the math, but like you don't
Dustin: fully flips the status, right? I think that's the key psychological thing is if someone comes to you into like, even if it sounds like I want to serve you, giving you free advice, it's really like an ask, right?
Dustin: Like, Hey, you're going to sell me something. Yeah. But if come to you and be like, I think you're awesome. I'd like to feature you and how awesome you are on my podcast. You know, it's like, yeah, I think, I think I'd like that. Right. So it's, it can be the exact same ask, but it's got a totally different posture to it.
Dustin: So I love that you said that.
Mason: Yes. And again, what ended up happening for me is over that timeframe people just ended up coming to me, building good relationships. And I, again, this was entirely unintentional, but I created a post Engagement because a lot of people do is they'll interview somebody and then just kind of say like, Hey, it's great to have you on the show.
Mason: Bye. And like, they don't maintain the relationship. What I did, and it took me an hour once a month, so it was kind of time consuming, but it was worth it, is I actually went through every past guest that had [00:31:00] been on
the marketing ladder, and I looked at where they were, and I looked at what roles they were hiring for, and I actually tagged them.
Mason: And my headline was like, if you're looking for a job, here are 48 CMOs that are actively hiring right now for these specific roles. And I would just tag them and list the roles. Not crazy content. Consistently went, for me, pseudo viral, like 000 impressions. So it got me in front of a lot of people, and again, I became the connector.
Mason: And then I never asked them for anything. I just kept showing up every single month saying like, hey, it looks like you're hiring. Here are people that can like help you get a job crazy. And again, what that turned into is over two years, 120 one to one relationships with decision makers at very large companies.
Mason: So when I inevitably went out on my own and launched crappy ABM, what I ended up doing is actually went back to that same pool of people. And I framed it as customer research and said, Hey, I launched my own business. I need to get your thoughts and insight. On what we're structuring as how we're going to do scrappy [00:32:00] ABM.
Mason: Could I just steal 25 minutes of your time and kind of walk you through what the pitch is going to be? And you just tell me if that would be even remotely helpful or not. And they were like, I'd love to. So I asked 120 people, 60 said yes to getting pitched. 10 became customers crazy. And then from there, yes, actually, yes.
Mason: That's like, that's how we got the first 10 customers. And then from there I launched scrappy, even the podcast at this point in about a year and a half, we've done 125 episodes. And what I have done now is I invite. EBM experts to talk about the programs that they're running. Now you're thinking, Mason, why would you invite people that are already experts to talk about the thing that you sell?
Mason: Great question. One, this content drives the larger business forward. So like it is helpful for me to actually create great content that can function as sales enablement content and provides actual external validation on our frameworks and thought processes. Super helpful to get industry experts to [00:33:00] be like, I love that framework.
Mason: And they just record it and then you turn it into a clip. Super helpful. Cool. That like the content engine is still something you should probably do at
every stage, but like how do you measure success? The other component is crazy thing. Everyone is resource strapped. Everybody, no one has enough time energy in the day.
Mason: So what ends up happening is after the episode, I say this still this exact script. Hey, so and so, that episode was awesome. I love that you and I are on the exact same wavelength on how to build an ABM program. Quick side note, I can guarantee like all of your friends are probably asking you for help, right?
Mason: And they're like, a hundred percent. It's like, but you're probably slammed because of everything you just outlined. That sounds like it's super time consuming. You probably don't have time to like help your friends. And she was, She often she sometimes we'll then say in response sorry, I'm actually thinking about the exact conversation.
Mason: I just had earlier this week and they say in response. Yeah, like I genuinely have [00:34:00] no time. And then I say, well, just as you think about it, because we're still on the same page around, like, how to build these programs, we actually have the capacity for a couple more clients. So, like, if you want to help out your friends, I'd really appreciate an intro to anybody that, like, needs the help.
Mason: 2 things will happen. 1, sorry, 3 things will happen. 1, they'll actually make introductions for you that same day, because typically people that are experts have conversations frequently. They will likely have something that like, ask them for help in the past three weeks and like, golly, like this person asked for help.
Mason: I didn't have the time. I kind of actually ghosted them. It would be amazing to make the introduction. And what you end up doing is actually relationship and reputation management for them because it doesn't just become a no. It becomes. I'm so sorry, I'm slammed, but I actually just connect with this person.
Mason: They're amazing. You should go hang out with them. So it's reputation and relationship management for them. The second thing that will happen is they will say, actually, I need your help because I am super slammed. And even though I know how to do it, I don't have the time to do it all myself. Can you help [00:35:00] me?
Mason: Or the third thing that will happen is they'll just say, hey, I'll keep that in mind. And like, you didn't lose anything, no harm, no harm,
Dustin: no foul.
Mason: And then what I now do is I keep posts back and clips back. So I post a clip when the episode releases. And then additionally, I post like random clips throughout sporadically.
Mason: We're actually standing up our company page and our company page is going to be exclusively podcast clips. So we're going to keep people engaged by continuing to promote them and show off their expertise every single day. So like that's the long tail and then eventually the other thing for context, if you think about the podcast episode, specifically with an expert breakdown, I actually have a question of like, what were the roadblocks to implementation in some people will actually tell you, well, it's still actually a challenge today, but, and then they'll walk you through the things that they're currently struggling with.
Mason: If you can solve for that, say, Hey, by the way, I'm not trying to pitch you. But you mentioned this, if you ever have the money [00:36:00] or you didn't say money, if you ever elegant way, if you ever had the budget and you wanted someone to like come in and help knock that out for you, we actually do that for our clients.
Mason: Like, again, I'm not trying to be pushing here. And the other thing that I actually do for a lot of people is I'll actually send them all the templates and the resources for how we would do it for them. Just blank. And then they see the process, but they don't have the guidance through it. And they ended up wanting to buy the guidance.
Mason: So I did that yesterday with somebody that's getting help with an account based podcast. So I literally sent them all of our templates, all of our frameworks, but they're all just blank. So he's going to try to do it. If he gets it done, great. Like awesome. He'll point back to me as a reason for his success when he talks to everybody else about his incredible podcast.
Mason: But likely he's going to be like, God, I just have the time, energy, and effort to figure this out. Even though I have the roadmap and the templates to do it. Let me just go hire the guy that will walk me through that process. So that's the end of building an account based podcast. I love that. So in, in difference to time, we won't go through all of that in detail again, but definitely there was [00:37:00] a lot there.
Dustin: So like, I would encourage people to kind of like rewind, go through that last part of Mason talking about how his own podcast is the strategy behind how he's using his own podcast to generate business and think of the parallels for yourself. But with a little bit of time that we do have left Mason, if someone's listening and they're like.
Dustin: Maybe they're not in quite as niche of, you know, as ABM is, is like, you said, like one of the benefits is just educating what ABM is. And then talking about the, there are people that do all kinds of nuanced versions of this, in addition to what we do, that's cool. What if someone's more traditional?
Dustin: So let's say they do, I don't know, pick anything, whether they run Facebook ads for a specific industry and they're like, I want to do a podcast. And I think this number three is really what I need to be doing. But like, Help them think through the strategy of who would they invite or like what would be a strategy that would allow them to kind of do this account based version of a podcast and something that's not quite so niche or so in depth is what you do.
Mason: Yeah, I would rewind for a moment [00:38:00] to my original podcast, which was called the marketing ladder. Yeah. It was marketing careers, which from a framing perspective is fairly niche, but it's just like a careers podcast is essentially a podcast on like how, how I built my career. So again, I would look at it through the lens of do a quick search of just like, are there other podcasts already that talk about Facebook ads probably, but actually probably less than you think.
Mason: And then what's your unique framing on it? So like context wise. There's actually like probably 10 or 15 podcasts specific to account based marketing. I just added the word scrappy to it, and that adjective makes it interesting. So, I would think about your unique framing for that. And you can
talk about a very broad topic, but with a unique framing, it feels more niche.
Mason: And then the other component is just, again, for, For simplicity we had a client that had a super actually some of our clients have super broad topics like one of them is just a small [00:39:00] business podcast. So it's like everything, small business, it's everything. It's just like we literally have interviewed like fractional CFOs, HR experts, marketers, sellers.
Mason: It's the most broad show. Of all time, we still invite specific experts that we want to be our customers onto the show. And like, it's a broad topic, but the guest pool can be pretty specific and niche. And like, nobody has to know that
it's like, Oh, we actually only interview this range of people. So there's that, or the that's the top 0.
Mason: 5 percent in order to like grow a really big show. You inevitably have to have a pseudo broad topic. So his show is called do this, not that. And there's literally like actionable marketing tactics of like what you should do and not do very basic, but we invite very high up leaders at very large brands that we want to close as a part of that strategy.
Mason: So, again, even if it's broad. You can still [00:40:00] invite people that you want to work with. That's really it. Like, who do I want to work with? Let me invite them onto a podcast, spend an hour with them in an interview where
they actually like me because I'm talking about how amazing they are. Everyone links their ego strokes just a little bit.
Mason: And at the end, you're like, hey, this was awesome. By the way, here's an offer and the offer could be nothing crazy. Like, do you know anybody that's like needs help with the stuff that you talk about? Oh, you do because everybody talks to you about it. Awesome. I do it too. Can I help you help them? Great.
Mason: Like super light offer that everyone benefits from. So don't be sleazy. Because I've been on some shows in which it was like a 30 minute recording slot. They interviewed me for 10 minutes. We're like, Hey, by the way, we'd like some product feedback. And then like hit me with a demo. I was like, I didn't want to be on a demo.
Mason: Like, like I didn't sign up for this. And again, if you're like, well, Mason, didn't you say that you asked people? But I asked people, I said, I am launching a business. You were a former podcast guest and someone that I would consider a [00:41:00] professional colleague and friend. Well, I actually asked. I have put together a pitch deck.
Mason: Will you listen to my pitch deck and give me feedback? It's all just expectations. And again, you can do whatever you want on your podcast. If you're like, Hey, by the way, after this, we're going to do like a 15 minute product demo. People want to be like, that's weird. But at least that's fine.
Dustin: I think, and that really, what you said there at the end is really what I was trying to drive home.
Dustin: So if you're, if you want to take an account based marketing approach to your podcast, Start with who do I want to work with and that could be ideal clients, but that could also be ideal partners, which you kind of describe with what you're doing mostly with your shows. It's a lot of partners. It's a lot of referral partners, collaborators, people like that, but either and or clients, partners.
Dustin: And then how do you structure the. Theme the name of your podcast so that you have a good excuse to talk to those people, right? I think that it might do. I kind of have the gist of what the third bucket here is really about is beginning with the end in mind about if I'm going to use this to get leads, [00:42:00] you know, very targeted individuals.
Dustin: I want to work with not leads and partners just make sure that my show. Is positioned in a way that it makes very good sense that I would reach out to them and ask them, invite them into a conversation with me. Yep. And
Mason: final thought on that, because I didn't do this until the past 2 months. I feel like an idiot that I missed this opportunity for the past 2 or past year that I've been doing it.
Mason: ABM is not often a title like it is in some organizations, but if they haven't established like ABM personal typically need us, it's typically like. A CMO and for chief marketing officer, VP of marketing, director of demand generation, like those are typically the titles we sell to. So I've been reaching out to get them onto the show, and I've had people that would that would send back and say, like, oh, we're in the really early stages of our ABM program.
Mason: I really don't have a success story to share. And I would just like. Cool. Let me know when you do what an idiot. Like I could have said, Hey, if you need help, we actually do that. And I've heard it to do that. This is exactly what we do. [00:43:00] And like, again, not sleazy, just like, Hey, totally hear you. If you want help, like go check out the podcast.
Mason: There's 120 solid episodes with experts that are like breaking down their programs. So you can probably learn a lot there. And then by the way, if you end up getting into a snag, like feel free to shoot me some questions or subscribe to our newsletter or like, you know, If you really need to go faster, hire us, like, is that easy?
Mason: So I just think about it in that lens of, even if you go after people that aren't a perfect fit for your show right now, but they actually address why
they're not, you can overcome that objection and that objection might be a good reason for them to become a customer. Absolutely. Yeah. I love it. I love it so much.
Dustin: This is, this is really good. You know, I've been in a podcasting space for years. This is one of my favorite interviews. I mean that sincerely, I'm talking about the practicalities of. What does a podcast what does a successful podcast mean? And, you know, gearing that measure of success towards your goals and your brand and your personality and the things that you want out of [00:44:00] podcasting.
Dustin: We just don't talk about this enough. So this is super refreshing Mason to kind of name it and claim it and be like, you can do any of these three or a combination thereof, but you need to know what you're doing. And if you've been kind of in the motion and you're like, gosh, you know, I hadn't really thought about this, but I've already got a podcast.
Dustin: Great. You know, the beautiful thing is you can now. Pivot a little bit and get more specific on what you're trying to accomplish. So, you know, if you're being successful and be able to measure it is so, so important. So, Mason Cosby, you're the man. Thank you so much for sharing. I would love for you to kind of share next steps for people.
Dustin: I don't know if it's your podcast or where you want to direct people. If they want to know more about you and learn more about account based marketing. Yeah.
Mason: One final thing that I realized I want to make super, super clear on how you actually measure the success of an account based podcast target account relationships that are developed pipeline and revenue.
Mason: Like if you want to actually make money, this is probably the best way that is the most directly tied to pipeline that is also trackable. So that's how you would actually make
Dustin: total sense. I just want to kind of say that if you're, if you're in the world of like, maybe you're a smaller business, you have a CRM, right.
Dustin: And you [00:45:00] think of like. Your pipeline. Well, the, in bucket three here, the way Mason described that, if you set up your podcast in that way, you can literally envision a guest and you can be like, is this individual belong in this pipeline? Yes. You know, which pipeline do they belong in? And then,
you know, you can do your, your normal marketing sales funnel pipeline stuff with them, but you're choosing who you want to invite into that process.
Dustin: And then, you know, obviously they get to choose yes or no, depending on how how they interact with you in the podcast. But that's a really good point. Bucket one. You're kind of like, Hey, all the socials and all the reach and all the impressions bucket two is that, but really for your own audience, like how am I
going deeper with my own audience?
Dustin: Am I growing my, my personal following versus like the random people that find on the internet and bucket one, but bucket three is very much measured by. How much business did this give me? How many qualified leads did I get? How many sales conversations? Right. So I'm really glad you inserted that. So yeah, please now share, share next steps for people that want more Mason in their life.
Mason: I don't know who would, but if you do it's really easy. I went with this [00:46:00] baseballs approach. So like everything is scrappy ABM for those of you who haven't watched baseballs, go fix your life. Go watch baseballs. Google Scrappy ABM, there's a podcast, there's a website, there's a newsletter, there's a LinkedIn, and then there's that's about it right now.
Mason: There will be more coming, but like, long and short, if you really want to stay up to date with everything, go subscribe to our newsletter, because we distribute everything there. If you want to learn more stuff go to the podcast, and it's a really deep dive on all these kinds of topics not just on the podcasting front, but also like, The more programmatic approach that is scalable.
Mason: I love that.
Dustin: Yeah, and I mean, 1, 1, take away. I would, I have them going to do, and I would encourage the listeners. If again, if you're like, man, this is really good. I want to see an example of this in action. Go look at Mason's podcast. Look at who's interviewing. Look at, you know, it. Subscribe and see what that
looks like so you can see what a well run ABM oriented bucket three podcast is in action.
Dustin: And I don't know if I understand what you do is more for the bigger companies with more established, revenue But I think [00:47:00] for anyone if you're if you call your customers clients, like you have individuals that you want to work with take your version of this to me as like Huge takeaway here is like make your version of what ABM means to maybe a smaller, even
solopreneur business and go choose your clients, go, go pick them out and say, these are the people I want to work with and then go proactively do that and use a podcast as a huge tool in that is what we, what we just learned.
Dustin: So Mason, you're amazing. Everyone go to the scrappy ABM podcast Google that term, go get your hat and Mason, you're, you're great. So thanks again for your time and all the all the great wisdom you've shared. Well, Dustin, thank you so much for having me and putting this all together. It's been a pleasure. [00:48:00] [00:49:00]