Marketing Spark, with Mark Evans

In this episode of Podcasting in Professional Services, John Tyreman sits down with Mark Evans, founder of Marketing Spark and host of the Marketing Spark podcast. Mark shares his journey from initially shelving his podcast idea due to technical intimidation, to fully embracing the medium as technology lowered the barriers to entry.

Together, they explore the true value of podcasting for B2B businesses and why treating a podcast simply as a "Trojan horse" for sales misses the bigger picture of relationship building and education. In this episode, you’ll hear:

• How tools like Riverside and Descript made recording and editing easier
• Why authentic human connections are the true gold of podcasting
• Ways to leverage existing relationships and book high-profile guests
• How to "squeeze as much juice" out of every episode with distribution
• Discover why podcast conversations are the ultimate trust-building asset

Learn more about Marketing Spark

This episode was produced by Red Cedar Marketing.  Need help launching and running a business podcast that actually produces results? Visit www.redcedarmarketing.com. 

Transcript

Mark Evans 0:00

from a strategic perspective, when a lot of companies do podcasts, what they're thinking of first and foremost is, Will this drive leads and sales? pushback when you say it's relationship building and it's having conversations and it's, and it's creating content that's interesting. not every episode has to be directly correlated to the pipeline. Some conversations will not impact demo requests at all. They'll just be good conversations that people will walk away and go,"Hey, I learned something from that podcast." And along the way, you'll build up better content, better relationships, more trust, and that will have an impact.

John Tyreman 0:46

Welcome business podcasters to another episode of"Podcasting in Professional Services." I am your host, John Tyreman, founder of Red Cedar Marketing. So if you're ready to start your podcasting journey, check us out at redcedarmarketing.com. Today, our guest is Mark Evans, founder of Marketing Spark and host of the Marketing Spark podcast. Mark helps B2B and SaaS CEOs figure out what matters, what to prioritize, and how to turn marketing into business outcomes during periods of change. Mark, welcome to the show.

Mark Evans 1:19

Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for having me on your show. Looking forward to this.

John Tyreman 1:22

Yeah, me too. We've been connected on LinkedIn for a while, and so folks that are listening to this, if you're not connected with Mark already, go ahead, give him a follow. Join one of his 14,000 followers. Um, that's crazy that you've had so much su- so much success on LinkedIn, Mark.

Mark Evans 1:41

I think it comes from being early into the game. I think it goes back to during COVID when everybody was stuck at home and LinkedIn suddenly became the place where we spent a lot of time, and it was just when people started to create content on LinkedIn. People like, you know... Uh, there's a lot of people who had already been doing it, um, but I just jumped on the bandwagon and gained a lot of momentum, and now everybody seems to be on the bandwagon. Although we have some reservations about the new LinkedIn and how it operates.

John Tyreman 2:13

yeah, LinkedIn is, uh, uh, it, from my experience, has always been a bit clunky. It's always been kind of a little frustrating from a user's perspective, but, um, the connections are real there that you can forge, and the people are, that are on the platform are gen- generally pretty nice and, uh, pretty awesome human beings. And Mark, speaking of COVID, um, you, you were one of those podcasters who seized that opportunity during that time. You launched your show,"Marketing Spark," in 2020, right?

Mark Evans 2:45

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

John Tyreman 2:47

So let's, let's start there. I think that's a great jumping off point. What prompted you to start your podcast,"Marketing Spark?" Um, why start that in the first place?

Mark Evans 2:59

It's an interesting story. So there's this, uh, marketing consultant, her name is Julie Jezuzek, and she had a podcast, and I liked what she was doing. Ex- the problem was that it seemed to take a lot of time for her to put everything together, the recording, the editing, the distribution, and I was a little bit intimidated by the different platforms. And so I, I shelved it, like a lot of people. Like, I had a busy consulting business, and I just didn't think I had the time to do it, even though I, I wanted to. And then the platforms evolved. You've got, you know, Zencastr and Riverside and Anchor, and suddenly the barriers to entry disappeared, and you didn't need a lot of technical skills or sophisticated software to make it happen. And as an ex-journalist, as an ex-newspaper journalist, asking questions and interviewing people were something I really wanted to do, and suddenly the podcast doors were wide open, and it was like, why not? It's, it's a great way to have conversations and meet all kinds of great people.

John Tyreman 4:03

you looked at it as the barriers of entry lowered to the point where you felt like it was comfortable enough from a time investment perspective to take that leap. And did you find that to be true?

Mark Evans 4:15

Absolutely, yeah. Once I found the right tools. I think I started with Zencastr as my original recording tool. Once I found that, and then I used Audacity as my, as the open source editor that I was using. Originally, I only did audio as opposed to video. And I just enjoyed the process. I, I en- I enjoyed interviewing people. It was a great opportunity to reach out to really smart people and say,"I have a podcast. Would you like to be on it?" And it's still the case, but the vast majority of people who I invite, they say yes. I've only had a few people say no, and I'm always puzzled why they do that because it doesn't take a lot of work to, to be a guest on a podcast. S- But it's been a really great way to talk to people and get, like, I hate to say it, but get some free consulting along the way because you talk to people who are really smart in different areas.

John Tyreman 5:05

Yeah, that, that's a really good point. And, um, I, you know, I found that to be true too, is sometimes, like, people you wouldn't expect to say yes end up saying yes that they'll be a guest on, on your show. I know early on in my podcasting career, I shot a shot to Rand Fishkin, and lo and behold, he said yes and came on the show, which was really awesome. Um, and you've had some pretty awesome names come on your show. I mean, Chris Walker, Robert Kaminsky, Dan Sanchez. I mean, these are, like, well-known people in the marketing world.

Mark Evans 5:35

Yeah, it's interesting because I, I-- One of the reasons I think that they agreed to be on the podcast, one, they love doing podcasts and it's great for them, but two, we had connections on LinkedIn I'd commented on their posts. Um, I'd reached out to them and, and established connections. And so when you made the ask, it wasn't like it was a cold ask. So it's interesting that you mentioned Chris Walker and Rand Fishkin because those are both big names. Chris is huge, and Rand is, you know, one of the highest profile personalities on LinkedIn. Everyone loves his videos. But because I had a relationship of sorts with them, when I made the ask, they agreed to say yes. And it's always great when high-profile guests say yes. But at the same time, there's lots of really great people out there who are super smart, and they're also made for great podcasts as well.

John Tyreman 6:26

relationship with them before, when I reach out, they agree to say yes. And there's always risk with a high-profile guest saying no. But at the same time, there's a lot to be gained by having them. And there are other- Yeah, it, I like that you went there and talked about the, like, building of relationships and familiarity with people before kinda taking that next step. And like, for example, you and I have had back-and-forths on LinkedIn over the, over the years. And so that's why it was kind of like a natural step. I mean, you participated in the research report that we put out. Thank you, by the way, for, for doing that. That was awesome of you. so I think that that's-- it, it goes beyond just the channel, right? And it, it's not even just like before the in- like a podcast interview, but afterwards as well, like when you're promoting the episodes after the fact, tagging those guests and, you know, keeping the, the light on them and, and showcasing their expertise. There's like this symbiotic relationship that happens with hosts and guests and like a rising tide lifts all boats, so to speak.

Mark Evans 7:18

I mean, I think, you know, it's like the whole dynamic of a podcast. It's a win-win proposition because we both have mandates and things that we want to achieve. As a podcast host, you're looking to drive brand awareness, create great organic content, um, build your presence. For me, I'm trying to obviously promote my consulting business. For the guest, if you do it properly, you put them in the spotlight, you promote the podcast in really effective ways to get their story out there. You give them all kinds of content that they can share on social media, and you end up, A, having a great conversation, and B, forging a relationship. So going forward, you and I have a different dynamic to our relationship'cause we spent 30 minutes together. So you never know where that's gonna lead. I always believe that conversations are where opportunities happen. And going back to our original thoughts about, about LinkedIn, the hierarchy in LinkedIn for me is conversations number one, c-connections number two,'cause those are the ones that lead to conversations. Then you've got content, and then you've got comments. And everyone thinks that content and comments are where it's at, but I believe that connections and conversations are the real gold. If you really wanna leverage LinkedIn to drive your business forward, you focus on those, and you can create some content along the way

John Tyreman 8:36

Totally. And, and your podcast is pa- a part of that equation in kind of like accelerating those conversations, taking those conversations off LinkedIn onto, uh, more of a synchronous, setting. So I'm curious, Mark, um, what are some things that you learned along the way on your podcasting journey that maybe you didn't quite anticipate or expect when you first started?

Mark Evans 9:03

I think the biggest lesson is that making a podcast, recording a podcast is relatively easy. And I say that relatively easy'cause, you know, it-- there's a lot of work involved in, uh, you know, targeting guests and lining things up. The conversation-- Or having a conversation, people like to talk, and it's easy to ask questions and, you know, people love to answer questions. The hard part, and I'm still struggling with this or still is trying to work it, is distribution, is once you do a podcast, then what? What do you do with it? So there's-- You can do video clips, you can post on YouTube, you can promote in your newsletter and LinkedIn, but it's-- You've really gotta have a systematic approach to driving as, as much exposure as you can. Because in a sense, an episode like you wanna squeeze as much juice out of that, out of that episode as possible, you know?'Cause you're-- if you're doing once a week or bi-weekly, then it's an opportunity, but you gotta, you gotta take advantage of it. So that continues to be a challenge. Um, I think I do an okay job at it, but that's probably the biggest lesson I've learned when it comes to podcasting.

John Tyreman 10:10

Yeah. I, I completely agree, and there's a balance that needs to be s- like s- you need to strike a, the right balance between the frequency that, in which you publish episodes and then how much you promote each episode, because you're on- you're constrained by how much time and resources you have to be able to do that. Now, what I've found is that a monthly frequency is, is sometimes isn't enough to keep momentum going, whereas a weekly frequency is a little bit like overkill and too much. I've got one client who does a weekly podcast, and he says it's like a second, like a part-time job. And it is. I mean, he dedicates like all of Friday afternoon to recording, um, every week.

Mark Evans 10:56

Yeah. I think, like in my experience, I've gone both ways. I've gone weekly and I've gone monthly, and I agree with you that bi-weekly feels good because you record it, you spend a week prepping, you know, doing the editing and get everything aligned, and then you spend the next week promoting it. Um, so that is a very healthy way to approach a podcast. The other thing that I've learned, just going back to your original question, is that sustaining a podcast is a lot harder than it seems. So whether it's a weekly or bi-weekly or monthly podcast, it's the idea that you have to do it consistently to be successful. It's like going to the gym If you don't exercise regularly, you'll, you'll, you won't, it won't, you won't get any of the benefits. And it, and it ex- and it explains why, you know, a lot of people get excited about podcasts. They follow best practices and they record five podcasts before they launch. They've got a nice library of podcasts. And then they do it for a month or two, and then they lose their interest and the podcast dies. And you know better than I in terms of the number of podcasts that are inactive. It's probably a lot. So consistency and committing to doing it is one of the biggest lessons that I've learned along the way.

John Tyreman 12:05

Yeah, totally. And, uh, the stats behind that are in the business genre of podcasts, only about 30% of the shows that are out there on Apple and Spotify are active right now. in terms of distribution, you mentioned that as a challenge. So I guess, like, how are you distr- distributing your content today,

Mark Evans 12:26

Yeah, it's a good question. So obviously you put it on YouTube and I slice it into clips for YouTube and YouTube Short, so that's sort of the starting point. Um, you publish the audio version via Riverside, so that's kind of the basics. And then what do I do with it? So one is to promote it in my newsletter. I have a weekly newsletter, so I can promote it there. Um, LinkedIn is an interesting beast because you have to sort of figure out what the angle is for every single post that you do, and then you need a particular video to go along with the post. And the question is, how many posts can you squeeze out on LinkedIn? Is it one post for the podcast? Do you try to do two? Some-- If it's a good podcast and I have some, there's really great answers, I'll try to, I'll try to do two. And my blog isn't that active these days, but if I was doing it, I would publish on my blog. But, uh, I think there's a lot more ways to do it. I just, A, one, is knowing what to do, B, is having the time, and three is having systems in place to make it happen.

John Tyreman 13:33

Yep. The systems are so, so key and, you know, uh, I love Riverside for recording. Its editor is a bit limited in my opinion. I know they're rolling out a new one in beta right now. I'm very excited to test that out actually. Um, I found that, like, for the clips themselves, it, it ch- it is challenging to fit them in into existing content calendars. Like, if you're very active on LinkedIn, for example, and you've got a, a, an array of different topics you wanna talk about and not all of them line up with the podcast, that can be a challenge to fit them in

Mark Evans 14:07

Right.

John Tyreman 14:08

scenarios, what, what I've found is that creating like a showcase page or a company LinkedIn page for the podcast can be a good way to have that be a push channel, but then also inviting connections to follow the show on LinkedIn.

Mark Evans 14:25

Huh.

John Tyreman 14:26

And it's-- I found some success with some of my clients in doing that because they- they're not gonna post on their own through their personal profiles, but we can push it out through a dedicated channel.

Mark Evans 14:37

I like that. I like that. I-- That's what I'm gonna do after we get off this podcast. I'm gonna actually set that, set that up. Actually, go-- If we wanna go back to tools for a bit, like Riverside, and I use Descript for video editing, and what I'd love to see is the love child of Riverside and Descript get together so that I didn't have to use both, two platforms. I could only use one. I keep waiting for Riverside, they make these announcements of,"We have a beta editor," and I get all excited, and it's like, ah, it's not so good.

John Tyreman 15:02

So you've tried it out?

Mark Evans 15:05

I have tried it out, yeah. It's, it just doesn't have... It's not as user-friendly. Uh, editing is a, is a lot more, is a lot more difficult. Um, but huge opportunity for Riverside. I mean, it's low-hanging fruit, really.

John Tyreman 15:17

I, I totally agree. And you mentioned, um, Audacity in terms of like that like timeline editor, like the open source one. I remember using that on like Windows 2000 when I was trying to like do like GarageBand stuff. And, um, the shift to a transcript-based editor, it was just kinda like really like a, a stark shift. But that's what I love about Descript, is you get the transpa- the transcript editor, but you also get the timeline editor underneath where you can like splice at specific points.

Mark Evans 15:50

Yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's a game changer. I don't know why I still use Audacity. I mean, I guess I could use Descript, uh, for certain things. I'm just so used to using it for audio that I'm-- It's kind of old habits die hard. But there's so many tools out there. Um, you know what I'd really love to see, and Riverside does this, is auto-clipping, where they take your podcast and they use AI to auto-clip. I- it just doesn't work very well.

John Tyreman 16:14

No, it doesn't. And I, I think it's because the AI lacks context on what you-- Like, you know your audience, right? You know the, the, like what their pain points are and what topics will resonate with them better than the AI. And so I think that's like the challenge there, is like the AI doesn't know where to pick out the, the, the right moments. But you as a human and understanding that conversation and already having lived it, you know where those moments are, so you're in the best position to do that.

Mark Evans 16:46

Or when you're listening to a podcast, and I do that when I edit. You're listening to the podcast, and all of a sudden you hear an answer and you go,"That's it." That's a g- that's not, not only a great clip, but that's a great piece of content for LinkedIn'cause the,'cause the statement is so, you know, it's controversial, or it's interesting, or it goes against the grain, and, and AI just doesn't do that, at least not yet.

John Tyreman 17:09

And then, um, to take it a step further, one thing that I'm finding success with also is in Descript, you can pull in, um, B-roll and like the GIFs and like other like stock photos and stuff. And it's, it's important to do that within like the first five seconds to visually hook people. And so, like I'll use the, the B-roll in the, like the first few seconds to hook people in, and I've found that like those types of videos have had like a noticeable increase in, in views on YouTube and on LinkedIn.

Mark Evans 17:42

Interesting, interesting. So l-- you're actually giving me lots of things to do, which I guess is a good thing.

John Tyreman 17:48

where do you plan to take the show from here? Like what's, what's on the horizon for"Marketing Spark"?

Mark Evans 17:54

I guess my biggest goal is to get back to consistency. So, uh, about a year ago, I took a full-time job, and the downside of taking a full-time job is that you have to work full-time for somebody else, as opposed to being a consultant where you can set your own hours. So I-- the podcast got a little sporadic. it's hard to have, you know, a lover and a, and having an affair on the side when you're, when you're working full-time. But, um, but I do wanna get back to consistency and at least, at least get back to, to bi-weekly podcasts. there's lots of opportunity there. I'd, I'd like to improve my distribution. Uh, I'd like for just more ways to become more efficient with the podcast, to actually systematize, editing and, and distribution. and that's, that's about it. I mean, I, I, I don't have any big goals for the podcast. It's not like I want it to turn into some kind of bigger money-making entity. If somebody wants to advertise on the podcast, that's great. But for me, it's a combination of professional development, developing relationships, squeeze-- like extracting really great content, and ultimately to build brand awareness and to position myself as,"Hey, I wanna talk to that guy," or,"I wanna hire that guy because he seems to know what he's talking about." And that's kind of the overall strategy for the podcast.

John Tyreman 19:17

to at least keep it going. And it, it looks like you were, you've been having it going at a monthly cadence over the last year or so.

Mark Evans 19:26

Yeah. Mon-monthly's been... Yeah, I've been trying. I was, I was doing really well, like in terms of when I was more active on LinkedIn. Like the m- thing about LinkedIn when you're, you're connecting with people and commenting on their posts is that you identify people who have a point of view. And so it's, when that happens, it's the guest potential just goes, like just goes pop, pop, pop. Oh, I gotta talk to that person. I talk to that person. I talk to that. I think last year I got away from LinkedIn, didn't spend as mu- as much time there. So I would say LinkedIn is probably my number one guest m- machine. Um, one thing we haven't talked about, and it is interesting, is I, like you, I, I get a lot of inbound from people pitching guests to be on my podcast. I guess there's some kind of machine out there that identifies

John Tyreman 20:13

I get that too.

Mark Evans 20:14

podcasts. And I would say 90%, if not more, of the podcast inbound is off target, irrelevant, wrong type of guests, uh, people who don't even focus on B2B or SaaS. And I think about the people who are paying for those type of services, and you're-- It's a waste of... It seems to be a waste of money. Maybe it works, I don't know. But, um, but that seems to, that's a, that's a struggle. if I'm, we're talking, we're getting really geeky and talking tools, I've actually got a Claude co-work skill that goes through all my emails, identifies the podcast inbound requests,

John Tyreman 21:00

very cool.

Mark Evans 21:00

ranks them, analyzes them, ranks them, and then generates, auto-generates a draft email based on how it assesses the podcast.

John Tyreman 21:12

And you've been using that workflow?

Mark Evans 21:14

Yeah. Yeah.

John Tyreman 21:16

That's awesome.

Mark Evans 21:16

needs a little tweaking because sometimes it, it gets a little, little AI-ish, you know, in terms of the language. But for the most part, it does an amazing job of identifying, who's good and who's not. And unfortunately, most of them are not very good, so it does a good job of identifying crappy podcast requests.

John Tyreman 21:32

You bring up a really good point about, uh, like how much money those folks are wasting on, like, the wrong kind of outreach. And, you know, I, I've, I've-- I'm most-- My business is mostly focused on producing content for podcasters. On occasion, I'll take on some work for trying to, you know, land an expert as a guest on certain shows. And just because a- as a host, I've received the, the, like, irrelevant pitches, I, like, don't ever wanna do that for my clients. So a little bit of research goes a long way. It doesn't take long. You can even use AI to help research, like, what are the podcasts that fit this guest's area of expertise, you know, target audience, all of that stuff.

Mark Evans 22:20

I don't know who, what these services are. There's a lot of them. Obviously, I'm doing a good job. In my last job, we wanted to drive brand awareness for our executive team, and so we hired an agency. We hired... I can't remember the agency, but we hired an agency to do it for us, and they actually did a really good job. We bought a package of, I think, 18 podcasts. I think we paid probably around$3,500 for them to arrange interviews. So it was about$200 a pop. I'd say, you know, half to two-thirds were podcasts that were on point and had the big enough audience and were good conversations.

John Tyreman 23:00

Yeah.

Mark Evans 23:19

And then if you can leverage the raw content to drive marketing, if you can, you know, drive distribution from that, then, then you get ROI on that.

John Tyreman 23:31

And so did-- Was that-- I'm just really curious about that. Did that, um... Was that teed up to those podcasters ahead of time? Like,"Hey, we, we, we want access to the media afterwards?"

Mark Evans 23:42

Yes, absolutely. That was, that was part of the deal that we-- the agency made it clear that we wanted access to the video and, and most podcasters are very happy to do it because for them, it just means the, the word is spreading wider for their podcast. And so they don't have a problem with that, and it's so easy to share content these days. And they didn't do any of the work. They didn't do any of the editing. They just shared the video. Um, or I would just download the video off YouTube that, that they had published, and then I started to chop it up myself using Descript, which, which is really easy. But n- never had a problem and, and got great... It was like$200 an episode was great value for what we, for what we were doing.

John Tyreman 24:21

Yeah, totally. Especially for how far you stretched it with the YouTube videos and the LinkedIn posts. So yeah, with a mind towards distribution. See, that's, that's the thing that, like, podcasts have-- are, like, one of the greatest forms of content for distribution potential because you've got the audio content, you've got video content, you've got text-based content that you can use, And I think like it, it's, it's still sourced from like a human point of view and personal-- it's fueled by personality, which I think is incredibly important, especially today when, you know, there is so much AI slop out there on LinkedIn. So podcasts are a great way to kinda cut through that. you mentioned that like you wanna keep the, the podcast going. It's a source of personal development for you. Even though that you, you took on a full-time job, you've got the consulting gig, you still wanna do the podcast.

Mark Evans 25:17

Well, one, the full-time job is no longer a full-time job. I'm-- I've gone back to consulting, so I've got, I've got a little more time on my hands or a lot more time on my hands. Um, I don't know. I mean, if, you know, if-- going back to my days as a journalist, I mean, the reason I became a journalist is I like meeting people, interviewing, asking questions. I'm very curious about the world around me, always looking to learn. And so just as a personal development tool, that in and of itself keeps me going because there's just so many smart people out there, and a podcast, as I said, is just an easy way to convince people to have a conversation with you. Like, it's going to a party and you go up to someone and say,"Hey, can I talk to you?" And they say yes right away, as opposed to they don't know who you are. So that's one. And I mean, you know, and, and I, I think the other side of it is that you're right. With so much AI-generated content out there, there's, there's, there's a lack of authen-authenticity. Um, there's a lack of real insight'cause the robots are, are creating everything these days. So when you're having a conversation, it matters. And my personal view is that the AI pendulum is gonna start to swing back. Everyone's got super excited about AI and how it can automate processes and basically allow you to cut and paste content. But I think it's coming back because I think a lot of people are disillusioned with AI-generated content right now. They-- You can recognize it, like, easily on blogs and, and LinkedIn. And

John Tyreman 26:48

And once you see it, it, it just totally turns you off.

Mark Evans 26:52

yeah, you, you're just like the words that people use, the expressions, the different approaches. And, and I think when you see real content, um, then that, that's gonna make a difference, and I think it'll, it'll basically be a brand asset going forward. And it's funny'cause I saw a LinkedIn post about this guy saying,"You know, my best posts are things that I just riff off on a Saturday morning." I don't-- You know, he just... And that's what I find as well, but those are authentic. Those are real, right? And I think podcasts are real conversations with real people, and people like that. And I, I think that's probably one of the big, most powerful things about podcasts these days.

John Tyreman 27:32

Dead internet theory, right? if you don't know what you can trust on the internet, then there's nothing to trust on the internet. And, and that's why trust, I think, has been so important over the last few years especially, and it's tied to AI. Because, um, how do you know that CEO's not writing that LinkedIn post? How do you know he's not using a ghostwriter or using AI, right? You don't. Uh, but a podcast, like, this is clearly, like, we are having a conversation right now. We are two human beings. Even though, you know, we're in different locations, you're in Toronto and I'm in Virginia, but, um, we're still, like, having a conversation, connecting as humans.

Mark Evans 28:12

I think if we look at the value of podcasts, I, I would hazard a guess

John Tyreman 28:16

I

Mark Evans 28:17

that easily 50% of content on LinkedIn is generated by AI right now.

John Tyreman 28:24

think it's 54%. I just looked that up the other day, yeah.

Mark Evans 28:28

And so when you get to that point, then it, then skepticism about that content starts to grow and grow and grow. And then LinkedIn, for a variety of other reasons, starts to lose its relevance, starts to lose its, its a- its appeal as a place. I don't know if we'll see an explosion in podcasts as a result of AI slop, but certainly the people who, who love podcasts, love making them, I think will lean into them harder.

John Tyreman 28:55

Yeah, I think we're gonna see a resurgence in in-person events. Um, I think the pod- podcasts are certainly gonna be a, a product of that. Videos on YouTube, I think YouTube is poised really, really well as a marketing engine in, um, B2B and software circles. Well, Mark, um, what didn't we talk about today that you think our listeners, business podcasters, should know?

Mark Evans 29:21

Okay, here's one thing that we hadn't talked about when it comes to, to, to business podcasts, is that from a strategic perspective, when a lot of companies do podcasts, what they're thinking of first and foremost is,"Will this drive leads and sales? Will this allow us to better connect with prospects? Is it a Trojan horse that we can use for, for getting people into the funnel?" So it's always very business-oriented, and there's pushback when you say it's relationship building and it's having conversations and it's, and it's creating content that's interesting. And so not every episode has to be directly correlated to the pipeline. Some conversations will not impact demo requests at all. They'll just be good conversations that people will walk away and go,"Hey, I learned something from that podcast." You know, there's no, you know, direct financial ROI when you do a podcast. And I think a lot of companies make a mistake because they, they get stuck in that, that perspective, and they forget the fact that what we're doing in a sense is we're entertaining, we're educating, we're educating, and we're not trying to sell it all. And if you-- And that's okay, right? And along the way, you'll build up better content, better relationships, more trust, and that will have an impact. So I, it, it's, you just have to look at a podcast in the sense that it delivers value in different ways. Some of them are tangible. You can, we can say,"Okay, that, I did that podcast and that happened." And some are, are hard to quantify. But, um, it doesn't mean that a company shouldn't do podcasts. It just means that you just have to look at it and, and s- and see that there are different ways to get value from a podcast.

John Tyreman 31:14

I like the way that you phrased that, a podcast delivers value in different ways, and it's so true. And the, that value is different, in my experience, the value is different for all of my clients. Like some, some want the podcast as more of a visibility engine. Some want to use the podcast as more of a relationship builder. Some wanna use the podcast as just a platform for them to bloviate and speak their mind.

Mark Evans 31:38

Yeah, for sure.

John Tyreman 31:39

One of my clients has said he was tired of flying around the country and doing speaking engagements at like local associations, and so that's why he wanted to start a podcast, is so that he could speak his point of view from his comfy office. I think that's a fantastic point to end our conversation, Mark. so for listeners who are listening or for viewers right now, if they want to connect with you, obviously LinkedIn is the place. Subscribe to the"Marketing Spark" podcast. Um, is there any other places that you're active that they should go and check out?

Mark Evans 32:09

No, that's about it. I mean, obviously my website marketingspark.co. Um, and in terms of the guests, uh, that I like on my podcast, it's B2B and SaaS CEOs and founders. Um, I really like talking to in-house marketing leaders, um, people who are in the trenches, you know, doing marketing. And then there's guests who go against the grain. They talk about topics that aren't getting a lot of, uh, attention these days. Like for example, I'm talking to someone later this week who does, advertising fraud, digital advertising fraud, and all the money that's being wasted on advertising. That's not something I never focus on, but it's a really cool conversation. So, um, those are the kind of things. It's, you're just looking for interesting people, interesting people and interesting to talk about

John Tyreman 32:57

Totally. Totally. Well, if that sounds like you, if you are an in-house marketer or someone who's going against the grain, hit up Mark and, um, see if you can be a guest on the"Marketing Spark" podcast. Uh, well, Mark, this has been a fantastic conversation. Thank you so much for your time.

Mark Evans 33:12

Thanks for having me. Always, uh, always like doing this. Always like to be on the other side of the, of the studio for a change after hosting so many. But, uh, thanks for inviting me to be on your podcast