Marketing Experts Reveal Top Strategies To

Arlen [00:01]
Welcome to the Ecommerce Marketing Podcast. Everyone, my name is Arlen and I am your host. And today we’ve got a very special guest, Jeremy Ryan Slate who is the host of the Create Your Own Life Podcast, which studies the highest performers in the world, as well as the CEO of Command Your Brand. He holds a BA from Seton Hall University in Catholic theology and World Religions, with a concentration in Judaism. Jeremy studied Catholic literature at Oxford University, as well as holding a Master’s in Roman Emperor Worship from Seton Hall University. His podcast was named the #1 Podcast to Listen To by INC Magazine in 2019, as well as Top 40 Under 40 by Podcast Magazine in 2022. He’s the author of the best-selling book Unremarkable to Extraordinary: 

Ignite Your Passion to Go From Passive Observer to Creator of Your Own Life; in addition to his new book Command Your Brand: Grow Your Impact, Income and Influence in the New Media Landscape. Jeremy and his wife, Brielle, co-founded Command Your Brand—a new media public relations agency designed to help entrepreneurs share their message by appearing as podcast guests. He resides in Stillwater, NJ where he raises chickens and is a former competitive powerlifter. Welcome to the podcast, Jeremy.

Jeremy Slate [00:51]
Hey man, thanks for having me. I’m stoked to be here and hang out.

Arlen [00:54]
Yeah, thank you for joining. Yeah, really excited to talk to you today because we’re gonna be talking about how to utilize the $1 billion podcast market to help grow your business because, you know, as you and I know, we’re both podcasters. It’s big business these days. And, you know, it’s really hard to believe. I’m always telling people that, you know, with this podcast, we’ve kicked off this show, episode one launched in 2014, which…

was like, things were like a whole different animal. Before then, you know, podcasts were, you know, we’re starting to get traction, but they are nowhere near where they are today. So I’ve seen the evolution of it. And, you know, right now it’s a great opportunity for any brand to really get out there.

Jeremy Slate [01:42]
It’s interesting, man, because I didn’t realize you started in 2014, too. That was the year I started. So it’s like, I think there were around 250,000 shows in that period of time. And it’s like, I think 3.5 or 3.4 million, depending on what platform you look at. I think Spotify likes to claim there’s more because it makes them sound better. But like, it’s really growing fast. But I think at the same time, something I’ve been talking about a lot recently in a lot of my keynotes is, legacy media is dying and people aren’t…

Arlen [01:51]
Yeah.

Arlen [01:59]
Yeah, exactly.

Arlen [02:09]
Hmm?

Jeremy Slate [02:10]
they’re not doing appointment television anymore, unless of course my Green Bay Packers are on TV. They’re not really doing appointment television anymore. It’s not the new season of the show is on, come and sit down or whatever. They wanna sit down and they wanna watch a whole season of Jack Reacher or they wanna watch a show on Netflix or Prime. So you’re seeing the consumers changing a lot. And because of that legacy media doesn’t quite know what to do with it. And you’re seeing that in how people consume podcasts as well.

Arlen [02:14]
Yeah.

Yeah.

Arlen [02:21]
Yep.

Arlen [02:34]
Exactly.

Jeremy Slate [02:38]
And a lot of the legacy brands have tried to come into the podcast world and do the same thing. And it’s just not working out. I know some of the bigger companies have actually ended up though the podcast space is growing, laying off people because they’re trying to do the same production strategy and stuff they did to build a television show and it’s just not the same.

Arlen [02:43]
Yeah.

Arlen [02:56]
Yeah, that’s very true. And what’s interesting about podcasts in general, especially this style of podcasts where it’s, you know, one-on-one interview style about a specific subject, it’s…

it’s kind of going against what a lot of experts are always pushing which is that everybody has a short attention span nobody can sit still that’s why we’ve got all these brief media clips which of course there’s a place for that and that definitely is something a lot of people are consuming these short clips or reels youtube shorts and what have you all those things are popular but at the same time what’s surprising a lot of these experts is that people will sit

I mean, we’ve got some podcasters. I mean, this podcast is not as nearly as long, but we’re about 30 minutes, but we’ve got some of the bigger podcasters like the Lex Freedman’s of the world. He does like two, three hour podcasts, one-on-one with people, and he’s getting millions and millions of views. And so that’s really kind of defying what most people would actually expect. I mean, what’s your take on that and this whole thing where, you know, People have a short attention span.

Jeremy Slate [04:13]
You know, I think it’s interesting because I think it’s also like different audiences, right? I think when you look at people that come to podcasts, they usually come at them to like, to learn something and they’re usually doing something else. You know, I think of, we just got our bathroom redone. So, you know, which usually means I ended up being the one to paint it. And I listened to a, I think it was like 50 podcast episode series about the Plantagenet Kings of England. Like these are the things that I get pulled into because I’m just very interested. And that’s how podcast listeners are.

Arlen [04:29]
Thanks for watching!

Jeremy Slate [04:42]
We wanna go deep on a subject. We really wanna learn about something. Like if we see a 30 second clip or something that grabs our attention enough to go watch something longer, but that comes right back to the whole idea of legacy media, right? Like if you look at it, even if somebody was on a television show, it’s two minutes, three minutes, five minutes. It’s very short. Even an old radio spot is short. Podcasts, like you get into these long conversations where you can really develop something and learn something. And I appreciate you mentioning Lex Friedman because you look at shows like that and Joe Rogan and things like that the conversations and the depth people get, like you could never get that in radio, television or anything else. You’re getting people exploring things. And I think that’s where the real value is, man. Like a good conversation should be iron sharpens iron. And what I mean by that is a good idea forces a better idea. And that’s what we can really do in podcasts and you can’t do in 30 seconds or a minute.

Arlen [05:30]
Yeah, very, very true, very true. Before we kind of get deeper in the whole podcasting thing and how it can benefit e-commerce businesses, I’m really curious about what I’ve described and what I read in your intro as far as your background and how you really got to where you were to where you are today, which is a background in theology. You went to some top universities, started theology, world religions. How do you go from that to becoming the head of a co-founder of a PR agency and a podcaster?

I’m really curious as to how that transition happened.

Jeremy Slate [06:04]
Well, my only real goal in life was to be on Jeopardy, obviously, about my education. I, but it’s, I’ve always been somebody that’s been very curious and always wanting to learn. I think that’s how a lot of my education background was. I got to my junior year of college and I was a Catholic theology major. And they’re like, hey, if you take these two more classes, you could be a double major. I’m like, hey, that’s a great idea. It looks good on a certificate. And I got to my senior year, they’re like, you know, you missed two more classes and you could have been a triple major in history. So like, for me, it was like, I’ve always followed things I was curious.

Arlen [06:09]
Yeah

Jeremy Slate [06:34]
doing and luckily I was still able to graduate college that way. And for me, the goal was to be a college professor. That was what I really wanted to do. But I applied to only one PhD program. I didn’t get in and I actually ended up teaching at a small private school. And in private school, I’m here in New Jersey at least, you don’t make very much money. You work about 120 hours a week and you make $20,000 a year.

So I was really, really burnt out after two years of doing that. And actually at that point in time, my mom ended up having a really bad stroke. This was back in 2013. So I was looking at what I’m doing. I’m like, I can’t do this the rest of my life, man. Like I’m not happy. I’m burnt out. I’m miserable every day. You know, teaching kids is not like I thought it was going to be because I’m somebody that enjoys learning. And it’s just not the same because the school had also gotten rid of like number grades. So like kids were like, all right, I can pass one thing for the entire year, be an absolute maniac.

And that’s the end of it. So I was just burnt out. So my mom ended up having a really bad stroke and it made me look at a lot of what I’m doing. I’m like, I gotta do something different. So I went through a number of different things. I sold life insurance, which I was really good at, but I hated conversations about death on a daily basis. It was kind of morbid. I sold products on Amazon, but I kind of messed up with my promo code and gave all my products away for a dollar in about 20 minutes. So that was kind of the end of my Amazon selling career.

Arlen [07:43]
Right.

Arlen [07:54]
Okay.

Jeremy Slate [07:56]
I did amazing selling machine and a lot of kind of stuff, but I like, I screwed up and I ran out of product, like so fast. And then from there, I’m just like, you know, what do I want to do with my life? I ended up actually working at a friend’s marketing firm. I had taught myself how to build websites and I was pretty happy doing that, but I’ve been a podcast fan since 2009. So I started the show just, you know, on a lark. And in our first 30 days, we had 10,000 downloads. So we had all this action really early on.

And people are like, oh, can you help me with that? I’m like, help you do what? Like I have a podcast, I talk to people. So we actually ended up starting a podcast production company. And we found that most of our clients preferred to actually go on podcasts rather than have them produce for them. So we just stuck with that 20%, dropped the 80. And ever since 2016, we’ve been booking our clients on great shows. And I feel like it’s funny how circular things are, because now in the last year with all the AI developments and things like that, we are…

producing high quality podcasts for clients again, as well as booking. So it’s been a fun journey, man.

Arlen [08:55]
Okay.

Yeah, that’s awesome. Thank you for sharing that journey. Very interesting how you got to where you are today, for sure. As we mentioned earlier, the stats will say, no matter what, depending on who you ask, there’s of course several millions of podcasts that are out there. And so, which goes to show that, of course, not every business, of course, has a podcast. There’s still space for your business if you don’t have a podcast. And so in your experience, what would you say would be

Arlen [09:29]
first few steps if you’re a brand and you’re looking to tap into this billion dollar podcast

Jeremy Slate [09:36]
Well, I think first of all, it’s finding out what the right use case is for you, because I think going the wrong one is kind of not the right way to do things. For example, let’s say you’re a well-established brand and you don’t really have somebody that’s a face of the brand. Well, we have found that those are typically podcast campaigns that, if you’re going on shows, don’t go well, because you don’t have somebody that’s a recognized part of the brand, and you’re like, oh, we’ll just…

throw our COO on it. Like people don’t know who they are, but they can talk about the company and people will buy their stuff. And it ends up being like an infomercial and it’s not really valuable. So for those brands, I’ve actually found it makes a ton of sense to do affiliate deals. Work with organizations that, people may like your products and may use your products. And then like, when they sell, you make money. Like I have some of the products I pitch on my shows.

are really great products and we make thousands of dollars a month by promoting other people’s products. So for some brands that might be the right way to go because podcast advertising, it’s not the same as like, you know, running a Google ad or something like that. It comes across like a recommendation. In 2019, Tim Ferriss did an experiment with his show where he went from an ad supported model to like a Patreon user supported model. And what he found was his audience is like, Tim like,

Arlen [10:28]
Thank you.

Arlen [10:48]
Mm-hmm.

Jeremy Slate [10:51]
we don’t mind paying you to help, but like we actually liked the ads because we saw them as recommendations from you. And I think that’s the difference with podcast ads. So if that’s the way for your organization to go, great. But also as well, you wanna look at every organization ultimately should be the hub of information. And that’s where I think having a podcast comes in. It’s like the place where you can educate your market, you can make them understand more, make them a better educated consumer. But I think you have to be willing to be in it for

Arlen [11:16]
Mm-hmm.

Jeremy Slate [11:20]
at least a year, that’s usually the recommendation I make to make a decision on it, but too many people try to make a decision within three to six months, and you’re only getting your feet under you after six months. So I would say if you’re gonna have a show, commit to it for a year, but frankly, going on shows as a guest is actually the first action you should take if you’re gonna start a show. Because if you understand what it’s like to be a guest, it makes you a better host. So ultimately there’s a lot of different paths you can go down.

Arlen [11:40]
Mm-hmm.

Jeremy Slate [11:48]
But I think if you look at it, Arlen, like you have to look at which one’s right for your brand because not every person should be hosting a podcast. Some brands aren’t right to go guesting on a podcast. It might make more sense than to do affiliate deals. There’s a lot of different angles you can go.

Arlen [12:01]
Yeah, I see. I’m glad you broke it down like that. There’s definitely a lot of options. You don’t necessarily have to create your own podcast because one of the things that I see dealing with e-commerce businesses, you know, on a kind of a daily basis and talking to other business owners is that, you know, they hear all of the stats and they see all of these successful podcasts. They want to get out there. They feel it can be great exposure. Like you said, it becomes a hub of information for your customers and potential customers. great vehicle. I think one of the biggest pain points that people have is that the content piece of it, you know, because they already know there’s so many other podcasts out there that are vying for people’s attention. How do you come up with the right content that is going to, you know, really just engage where so it’s just not, you know, another piece of content that just kind of, you know, goes out there. It’s like the, the saying that they say, you know, if there’s a tree in the forest that falls and it makes noise and nobody hears it, does it really make noise or, you know, something like that. But you you figure it out. What’s the strategy for figuring out what’s the bright piece of content?

Jeremy Slate [13:11]
I think there was a song about that when I was in school. If a tree falls in the forest. But like, interestingly enough, I think the step everybody skips is kind of the surveying step. What are people in my market or what are people in my vertical already doing? Do you know what I mean? Like, they’re just like, all right, this is the show I’m gonna do, I’m gonna pump the show out and then we’re gonna get it out there. But you have to survey first. What are other people doing in your market? What are they doing well? What are they doing terrible? Because the actual, like, the value is in the gap between where

Arlen [13:16]
Alright.

Arlen [13:21]
Okay.

Jeremy Slate [13:40]
your competitors are doing well, they’re not doing well. And that’s where your content’s located. Like what are they missing and what can you do better and what can you teach better? I was talking to one of our clients about this two days ago and he calls it the, what the heck did he call it? The market leader process. Like if you wanna become so well known by your competitors that they’re looking at your content and saying, shoot, what am I missing? I think that’s the biggest thing is you wanna look at where’s that gap. The other thing as well,

surveying like what terminology are people using to talk about it for like naming your show, because I think as well people try to get too like creative and esoteric about the name, where like you look at like the title of your show, the title of your show is perfect, because it describes exactly what it does and what people are gonna get from it. So I think that’s important too, like what is the gap in the content being developed and you know, where can your expertise fit in? But also what’s a name that people are gonna say, oh, I know exactly what I’m getting from the show. And then when you’re looking at that as well,

you have to go kind of even deeper, like, okay, is this show gonna be interview-based or is this show gonna be content-based? And if it’s gonna be content-based, you have to understand, like, there’s a lot of script writing that goes into that, man. Like, I had a, I know it’s probably a little bit in the weeds, but like, I had a history podcast for years. Those scripts took forever to write because there’s a lot of research in that. And you have to understand when you’re doing that for your own podcast, actually scripting a podcast takes a lot of work.

So for me, you want maybe making interviewing market leaders within your market makes the most sense because it takes the least amount of prep for the best return. Now as well, another thing that’s really great too, is there’s some great tools out there. There’s one called Sintra, S-I-N-T-R-A. It’s a app that plugs in with ChatGPT and it lets you create like a competitive advantage bot. So basically you can put in competitors websites and it’ll tell you where the gaps are in the market.

So like those are the type of things you need to be doing to know like what are the gaps that I can cover in my show. Because if you really can’t find gaps to cover, then it might not be a great idea to start a show. Like it’s not a bad thing to just not do a podcast.

Arlen [15:44]
Yeah, yeah, I like that. It’s, you don’t necessarily have to follow crowds with a speak and then just jump in there just because everybody’s doing a podcast. It just may not be right for your business. So yeah, I like that. I like the fact that you’re suggesting surveying at first rather than just kind of jumping in there and just throwing it out there, seeing if it sticks, something wrong with doing it.

Jeremy Slate [16:06]
Like, dudes, sir- Go ahead, sorry.

Arlen [16:09]
There’s nothing wrong with doing that. Of course, as a marketer, I was told that you should test, try different things, test. If it doesn’t work, pivot. So, there’s nothing wrong with trying something, but you don’t want to, as a business owner, your time is valuable. So, you definitely have to make sure it’s the right fit.

Jeremy Slate [16:27]
Because surveys are the key to stats, man. You have to know, what are the words people use? For us, one of the first entries in our business is we do this really good free masterclass, and we teach people a lot in it. But we actually surveyed our entire CRM, which is like 7,000 people. What word makes the most sense to you? Webinar, training, masterclass? Because even to that effect, your marketing’s gonna be more effective if you use the right words.

So if you’re surveying, like then you can take what you’re doing and double down on it. But I think a lot of people try to throw an idea out there and then wonder why it doesn’t work and then try to make an iteration on the iteration when they actually don’t know the data. Like you got to have data, man.

Arlen [17:08]
Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. Data is king, for sure. Now, you know, let’s say you’re getting going, you’re in e-commerce business, you’ve done the survey, you see that it makes sense, you see that there’s a gap in your market or there’s a gap in this whole podcast space for the content that you can actually produce and you know you’re getting going with it and you’re wondering, okay, you know, there’s production costs for this, of course, you know, I got to get my

Arlen [17:38]
So all of these things cost money. And so the next logical thing that you’re thinking about is monetization. How can I monetize this to not only cover my costs but make a little bit of revenue from this? Are there any specific monetization strategies that you would recommend for business at that point?

Jeremy Slate [17:56]
Well, if you’re looking at it as an e-commerce business, like you have to look at it in two different ways. Like, am I an e-commerce seller or am I somebody teaching people about e-commerce? So if you’re teaching people about e-commerce, then like it makes a hell of a lot of sense for you to have a podcast and think about, okay, so what are the different products I recommend? Okay, I use this for landing pages. I use this for optimization. I use this for this strategy and this software. Like those are the things you should be thinking of. So when you’re…

talking about them, then you go out and you interview those people that sell those different products that are going to help make your market better. And then you promote those products. So like if you’re going to look at it as a podcaster from that perspective, we’re like, hey, I’m an e-commerce guy and I’m teaching about e-commerce. Now like let’s say within e-commerce, like let’s say you’re a product driven e-commerce person. Well, it actually makes a lot more sense for you to go on shows as a guest. And I’ll tell you why. Like we have

a couple of different clients that have sold like really good products. Like we have one client that sold an Allo product, but his Allo product was sold e-commerce, right? So that’s how they sold, made all their money online. So what he did is he is brilliant when it comes to e-commerce, to Allo. So he would go on these different shows within the health niche, and he would present the host first with, hey, I wanna be on your show and I wanna do an affiliate deal with you. So they would get, I think like 25 to 50% commission and everything they sell. So now the host wants to pitch your product.

and then he would get on and he would just over deliver and he would teach people everything about his product. He even like taught people how to make his product that they didn’t even wanna buy it. So they trusted him so much, it would get to the end and now the host is monetarily invested and he’s monetarily invested. He had one show that he sold $60,000 of his aloe product on because he structured it the right way. So if you’re going on it as an e-commerce seller and you have a product like that, that is like a tangible product you can sell or like even a SaaS product.

Arlen [19:40]
Hmm.

Jeremy Slate [19:48]
Like there’s a really good market to do it as an affiliate deal and go really niche in that niche. Does that make sense?

Arlen [19:59]
Yeah, yeah,

Arlen [20:23]
companies that are similar to those that are advertising on that podcast.

Jeremy Slate [20:27]
Well, there’s also, there’s databases out there. I think, I think Podchaser does it. And there’s a few other ones that you can actually put in shows and you can see what podcast or company spending money on. So then you can say, okay, well, this company spending money, that company spending money, great. I’m gonna pitch them on like advertising on my show too. So you can also figure out quick, like where are people spending money and approach those people. I think like to just build a show and wait for inbound, like you’re, unless you get huge, man, you’re gonna be waiting.

Arlen [20:38]
Yeah.

Jeremy Slate [20:54]
You need to really make it an outbound thing and find the right advertiser.

Arlen [20:54]
Yeah.

Yeah, you definitely do. Yeah, the inbound is because we’re at the point where there’s so many. It’s unless, like you said, you’re at the millions and millions of listens and downloads and views, then yeah, companies are gonna start chasing you. But there’s only a handful that are really at that particular level.

Jeremy Slate [21:02]
Yes.

Jeremy Slate [21:14]
When you’re looking at the money strategy on that too, this is my personal opinion, maybe yours is different, but I don’t think a CPM benefits most podcasters in terms of saying for X number of thousand downloads, this is what you pay. Because I think the average CPM payout is like 15 or 25 bucks per thousand, which is not much. If you’re gonna do advertising, do flat rate advertising with people and say, hey, I have a minimum buy. You have to buy at least one month worth of episodes in my show.

Arlen [21:33]
Yeah.

Jeremy Slate [21:42]
for two reasons. Number one, it’s more money for you. Number two, people are gonna hear that ad more times so the advertiser will actually get a return. And the other thing is like affiliate deals, man. Like I actually make more money with affiliate deals than I do with CPM. So you gotta see what works for you.

Arlen [21:54]
Okay.

Okay, awesome, awesome. Now, you know, marketing 101, anytime you hear a marketer go to a marketing course, one of the main things that we always hear is that stories sell, not facts and figures and info about your product. People always wanna hear about a story, an engaging story around your brand, and that’s what kind of pulls people in. So how do you believe podcasts have a unique advantage, podcasts have a unique advantage in storytelling for brands, and is there any particular example of a brand that you feel has done exceptionally well at doing this.

Jeremy Slate [22:30]
Well, when I think of it, it’s number one, because you have the amount of time you have to answer questions and have a conversation. Storytelling fits well is one part of it. But I think stories are that thing that tie in what you taught and what people are gonna remember. Because they’re not always gonna remember what you taught them, but they’re gonna remember the story. So when you’re answering questions, you can say, you know, like, hey, that’s a great question. You answer the question, say, I have a story like that, like, it makes it more real to the person. So I think that’s where stories have a ton of value is their.

something that gives people reality, but it’s also gonna help them remember it. When I think of that, actually a really great client, Chris Miles Money is the guy’s name. He has a podcast, I think since like 2015 or something like that. But he’s been on a lot of shows as a guest. And one of the things he does is he tells this incredible story about how he helped his dad with, you know, helping him to manage money. And it was the thing he always wanted to do and like what he was able to do. So people hear that and they’re like, man.

He went to that length for his dad. Well, how’s he gonna help me? So they’re really intrigued and they’re really into it. It creates a reality point like, okay, I can see that he did it and he can do it. That’s one part of it. But the other part about it is it also creates an emotional connection. People have an emotional buy-in to what you’re gonna tell them. So I think that’s the real value in story, man. It takes your points and it makes them stronger. That’s a really thing to consider.

Arlen [23:29]
Thank you.

Arlen [23:44]
Yeah.

Arlen [23:51]
Yeah, yeah, that emotional buy-in is, you nailed it there, it’s really what is that engagement factor that’s really gonna pull people in and get them to not only engage with your brand, but just kinda keep them coming back for more and continually listen to episode after episode, even if they’ve already become a customer of your brand. Getting them to come back, getting them to refer others is also a big factor in that.

Jeremy Slate [24:18]
It’s what makes them different, man. It’s like why people would come to you versus somebody else because they’re like, I know you, I’ve spent so much time with you, I’ve learned about you. Like, maybe you have animals and you talk about in the show. Maybe you talk about your kids in the show. You bring these stories into the show so people start to feel like they know you. And I think that’s the real value, man. You’re not just another podcast host, you’re a friend. And I think that’s something that’s really cool.

Arlen [24:33]
Yeah.

Arlen [24:39]
Yeah, for sure, for sure. Now, I’d say another pain point, I guess you could say, for somebody that’s a podcaster, a new podcaster, it’s an e-commerce business, another pain point outside of, you know, getting the content, let’s say they’ve come up with a niche for the content, they found that there’s a hole in the market of a particular type of content that’s not being served, the next step is gonna be, the next kind of pain issue that they have is gonna be promotion. Now, I know your role with your particular brand

as your role as a podcast host, you’ve seen I know a ton of different promotion strategies. Could you share some effective ways that podcasters can not only promote but either cross-promote and help grow their podcast outreach?

Jeremy Slate [25:25]
So I guess as a guest or as a host, what do you want more specific songs? I can go either way. What do you want the most?

Arlen [25:32]
I would say as a host, you’ve got a podcast, you’re hosting it and you’re trying to grow it.

Jeremy Slate [25:38]
So I would say like number one, like if you’re not doing video in 2024, man, like you got to be doing video. Like it is vital. YouTube is the number two search engine in the world. And if you’re not on YouTube, like you’re not getting found. So I would say that’s the number one thing you have to consider. So within that, there’s so much of an opportunity to get found there. So video optimization is another really big part of it. There’s a few pieces of software I like around that. I’ve used a couple of different ones, but I’m a big fan of vidIQ like Scorger videos. They also have a new great tool for

They use an AI that’ll actually create the thumbnails for you, which is really helpful as well. So that’s a really, really great service for growing traffic. Another part of that is there’s a tool I like called, I’m gonna spell it too, because it doesn’t spell like it sounds, called video.ai. So V-I-D-Y-O.ai, it’s like video. And what you can actually do is put in a link to a YouTube video or upload an entire file. So it’ll take that and create actually like all the chapter segments.

Arlen [26:26]
Okay?

Arlen [26:35]
Hmm.

Jeremy Slate [26:35]
It’ll also create reels and shorts and stuff like that. So it can take your content and make it into a big, wealth of content, I guess you could say in some ways. And I think the other thing you have to consider then is when people are coming back to your site, like where are the leaky holes in your bucket? So there’s a couple of different types of software. Like number one is you should be pixeling your sites. You can retarget people, whether it’s on Google or what’s on Facebook. The other thing I would say is there’s a really great tool. And I think their audience is more like,

Arlen [26:44]
Mm-hmm.

Jeremy Slate [27:02]
Big e-commerce sellers, but I’ve used it as somebody running an agency as well. It used to be called getemails.com, now it’s called retention.com, but it’s actually a piece of code that goes on your website and they can take about 30 to 50% of your anonymous web traffic and actually opt those people into your list. So now you’re growing your list. But you have to think of like, how can I get found? How can I get seen? And how can I grow what I’m doing? So for me, those are the things I’m concentrating on is how can I grow my list? And also, how can I get more people to see my content on YouTube specifically?

Arlen [27:36]
That’s great because I know it’s a big issue as far as, you know, getting it out there, getting the exposure. I know as a podcast host, that’s, you know, one of the things that’s always on the forefront of our team’s minds is, you know, how do we get more downloads? How do we get it really out there? And yeah, the video I know is really, really huge. We’ve been…

Jeremy Slate [27:54]
But it’s not even just downloads. Like on YouTube, like you got to check your watch hours, man. Like how long are people watching it? Like I don’t care as much about streams and plays, but if my watch hours are high, well that means I have really good engagement. So that’s the thing you gotta be watching.

Arlen [28:08]
Yep, yep, for sure. Well, Jeremy, as we get ready to wrap things up, I wanted to see, are there any emerging trends that are coming out that you predict will shape the podcast industry in the near future, especially for brands that are looking to grow their audience and their influence?

Jeremy Slate [28:27]
Well, there was a book that I read a number of years ago called the Lexus and the Olive Tree. It was by Tom Friedman that writes for the New York Times. And he’s like, we’re seeing the democratization of finance. It’s, you know, finance is becoming, you know, available to the everyday person. So what I think we’re seeing in podcasting now is we’re gonna see the democratization of podcasting. And I think what I mean by that is we’re seeing so many really good and affordable AI tools come out that we’re seeing really good quality podcast content become available to absolutely everyone. So, you know, we use…

We’ve cut about 80% of the costs out of our podcast production process when we produce our show, but we’re getting 10 times the reach we got. So I think that’s the thing to really consider and that’s we found a lot of the great tools to take a lot of the time and effort out of it. So I think that’s what you’re going to see is you’re going to see better quality shows and production and hosting, but at a much more affordable price where it becomes available to more people. I think that’s the exciting part, man, because then what happens within that is it’s more of like the cream rising to the top, okay? So…

you know, how are the best shows gonna then grow more as we get more quality shows into the space?

Arlen [29:28]
Yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah, that’s really the main thing, because I don’t see them going anywhere. I think podcasts are only going to continue to grow. There’s going to continue to be more and more. And yeah, we’re just going to have to see, where is all this going? We do have all of these new types of media now coming out. Now we’ve got the Apple Vision Pro, which was just launched. I saw some early reviews of people demoing it. And that, I think, is another thing that I think is going to change the space, especially remote podcasting when you’re not in the same room like we are. I think that’s another thing that I think people need to kind of keep an eye on.

Jeremy Slate [30:06]
So I think the thing that’s interesting about that is the more, I guess, technological and detached we become, the better of an opportunity it becomes for us as hosts. And the reason I say that is because people are dying for humanity and human connection. So the more human, the more real you can be as a host. Like don’t cut out all those ums, am, butts and ahs, right? Don’t cut those out. Normal people do that. When your dog barks, leave it in there because you’re like, oh, he’s got a dog, he’s a person. Like…

People are actually dying for humanity, the less humanity we see in things. And I think that’s actually a bigger opportunity out there for a lot of us creating content.

Arlen [30:42]
Yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. And thank you for coming on. This has been an awesome conversation. You know, as a podcast host, and a business owner, I can always talk about podcasting and I love the, you know, pushing it and or…

touting all the cons for doing it, and the reasons not to do it, like you said. You can go both ways. But yeah, I think this is an awesome conversation. I know it’s gonna go a long way with our listeners and our viewers. But lastly, before we do let you go, I always like to share, like our guests, to share one closing fun fact about themselves that you think we’d be interested to know.

Jeremy Slate [31:19]
I, so I’m closing in on 40, I’m 37, but in my early 20s, I used to be a competitive power lifter. I am, at that point in time in my life, I’m only 165 pounds now, but I was five foot seven, 220, and I pulled an 80,000 pound army tank to raise money for the Wounded Warrior Project. So that’s how I used to spend my 20s. Ha ha ha!

Arlen [31:27]
Okay.

Arlen [31:37]
Whoa. OK. Gotcha. Wow, that’s definitely a fun fact. Well, $80,000 tang. Whoa, 80,000 pound tang. Wow, that’s a lot of weight. Yeah.

Jeremy Slate [31:48]
Yeah. They put it on the back of an 18-wheeler because obviously with those treads, you can’t get a tank to move. So they put on the back of an 18-wheeler, they put the 18-wheeler in neutral, and then if you get really low, you can slowly get it to move and eventually get it to move quickly.

Arlen [31:57]
Yeah.

Arlen [32:02]
Okay, yeah, that’s definitely a fun fact. Wow, that’s something I probably couldn’t get it to barely inch at all. I know that took a lot of training to get to that point though, I know that. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Well, Jeremy, this has been an awesome conversation. Thank you for coming on and thank you for joining us. If our listeners and viewers would like to pick your brain anymore about podcasting or how you can help their business, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Jeremy Slate [32:15]
Yeah, many years.

Jeremy Slate [32:30]
My goal and you know, has really been, by the name of our company and also by the theme of our conversation is to really help people command your brand. Like I think podcasts are the number one way now and in the future to reach your market and to create an impact. So I actually wrote a really awesome book out there that people can grab right now for, it’s free, just gotta cover the shipping. If they head over to bestpodcastbook.com, they can grab that new book, which is called Command Your Brand, Grow Your Impact, Income and Influence in a New Media Landscape. bestpodcastbook.com.

Arlen [33:02]
Okay, awesome. Well, thank you for sharing that. I definitely encourage people to check that out. We’ll have the link to that in the show notes as well as the link to your company’s brand command, yourbrand.com. All right, Jeremy, well, thanks again for coming on to the e-commerce marketing podcast. It’s been a pleasure talking to you.

Jeremy Slate [33:17]
Thank you, sir. I appreciate you having me.

Podcast Guest Info

Jeremy Slate
CEO of Command Your Brand