Welcome to the Spotlight!

Welcome to the first Podcast Spotlight blog post in our series! We’re sharing the stories of podcasters like you to find out what they’re doing, how and why they’re doing it, and even share some challenges they face and how to overcome them. Hope you enjoy the series and if you think there is a podcast that should be included in the spotlight, please let us know at dan@zencastr.com.

Life Science Marketing Radio

Our first podcast spotlight kicks off with Life Science Marketing Radio, which is an interview-based show with episodes usually running about 30 minutes. Chris Conner runs the show and he’s done a great job of finding a very specific industry niche and audience for his show. That niche is marketers in, you guessed it, life science organizations. We often hear from Seth Godin and Gary Vee (AKA Gary Vaynerchuk), among many other marketing experts, that when starting a podcast (or a business for that matter), we should find a niche and over-deliver to that audience. The old expression “don’t boil the ocean” applies to podcasting, because as an independent podcaster, if you try to serve everyone you’ll end up serving nobody because you can’t be everything to everyone, as they say.

Why Podcast?

Chris’ focus is on helping life science companies market their work, humanize their brands and share the best marketing ideas in their industry. In addition to being a place to share life science marketing ideas, his podcast serves as a personal branding and marketing tool so his future clients can get a better sense of who he is and what they can expect when working with him on future projects. As we all know, podcasting is a very intimate medium and allows a relationship to develop with listeners. Chris has found that podcasting has been even better than his blog in helping to grow his brand and client work.

Haiku description of Life Science Marketing Radio:

Marketing science?

Do you listen to podcasts?

Subscribe to this one.

Ideal Listener:

When starting a podcast, it’s a good idea to have an ideal listener in mind to help you articulate the content and even how to market your show to the intended audience. Chris’ ideal listeners are Marketing Managers and Directors that work on products or services that serve biotech, pharma and academic researchers in the life sciences.

What was the hardest part when starting your podcast?

Uncertainty of finding guests on a regular basis.
Missing out on automated distribution through iTunes. Chris went from uploading on SoundCloud to moving his whole site to the Rainmaker Platform, which he’s found has made publishing much easier.

Podcast Promotion?

Chris says, “I promote my blog primarily through sharing on Twitter, in various industry groups on LinkedIn and at some conferences.” Another way he grows his base is by encouraging listeners to refer colleagues to the show. “I make a call to action in each episode to have listeners tell two friends if they like it. My niche is pretty small and the most likely way for someone to find me is if a colleague tells them about the show.” Interesting tactic. Gently encouraging your audience to help spread the word is certainly an interesting way to promote your podcast because it lends the social credibility of the person passing on the referral, and sometimes people might need a nudge to encourage them to share.

"My niche is pretty small and the most likely way for someone to find me is if a colleague tells them about the show."

What’s the best part of podcasting?

“Without a doubt, it has been the networking power of the podcast. The podcast has helped me build my brand and opened doors to people I might not have met otherwise. That, in turn, has led to connecting with other influential people in my industry (and more guests!) It just gets better and better.”

What’s your recording setup?

As you can see in the photo, Chris has an efficient setup for recording and uses the following equipment for remote guests:

ATR-2100
Pop Filter
Scissor arm boom
Zencastr
When conducting in-person recordings Chris opts for a Sound Devices MixPre-3.

For editing, he recently transitioned from Audacity to Adobe Audition.

Best tip for other podcasters?

“If you have started, stay with it or make an adjustment if you need to, but it can pay off. If you are thinking about starting, keep your mind open about how to serve your target audience beyond your first idea. There may be other topics or different approaches that will get you where you want to go. And it’s just a lot of fun!”