Welcome to Podcasting Tech, a podcast that equips busy

entrepreneurs engaged in podcasting with proven and cost effective

solutions for achieving a professional sound and appearance.

I'm Matthew Passi, your host and a 15 year veteran in the podcasting

space. We'll help you cut through the noise and offer guidance on software and

hardware that can elevate the quality of your show. Tune in weekly

for insightful interviews with tech creators, behind the scenes studio tours, and

strategies for podcasting success. Head to podcasting tech dot

com to subscribe to this show on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform

and join us on this exciting journey to unlock the full potential of your

podcast. One the most important aspects of your

podcast isn't the tech that you use, but why you're doing it.

And today, we have a guest who is a very interesting why, a very interesting

strategy for her podcast, and one that has been quite successful and one that I

think you can learn a lot from. Today, we are chatting with E. B. Moss.

She's a content strategist, creator, and award winning writer. She

has a marketing consultancy at the Moss Appeal, and her

podcast is insider interviews with E. B. Moss. E.

B, thanks so much for joining us today. So good to see you, Matthew. Thanks

for having me. It is good to see you again. We we did get the

chance to hang out together at podcast movement. I, made a quick appearance on

your show, in the hallway, hallway conferences

Yeah. As we like to do. Powerful.

Yes. So I I wanna start by you you you have

this background as writer, journalist, marketer.

What took you from there into the podcast space to begin with?

Well, you know, audio is audio, I think.

And I, I describe myself as a radio brat.

My dad was one of the first broadcast radio majors of

Ithaca College, and we moved from market to

market in radio. And I, of course,

landed in radio as you do, you know, apple tree, that

kind of thing. And so after early stage career in

radio as a copywriter and voice talent and then an actor for a

while. I worked in television, and then guess what?

I landed back in radio. I was

working for a rep firm called Ad Large,

a terrific company run by Kathy Sukis, and,

they were launching a podcast division while I was there. And

so I found my way back into being a little bit

behind the scenes and now in front of the microphone again. As

someone who has a background with a long history

in real traditional radio and then

television, what did you think of the podcasting space

when you were first asked to work in it and and, you know,

sell advertising for it? Yeah. I I was actually

thrilled to be a part of that. I

remembered one of the early stage,

podcasts was, a former acquaintance of mine,

Kevin Pollock, the actor. And he always

embraced things like, like

anything new in tech. He's one of those actors who embraces

tech. And I was listening to him do this

sort of audio video thing. I'm like, wow. That's

really cool. And so when all things came back to

being able to embrace it in an on demand

kind of way, I was all over it because it didn't seem risky.

You weren't broadcasting immediately out into the world.

It was, you know, pretty small back then, and it was this test

and learn kind of approach. So I loved it. So how long

were you doing that before you decide to launch your podcast insider

interviews? Well, I was kind of thrown in the deep

end by another former, boss of mine, Jack

Myers. I left AdLarge, and I went over

to become the managing editor of MediaVillage, which is a

trade publication all about media marketing and advertising.

And they were a little light on the audio coverage.

So first, I hired, some of the freelance journalists

to heavy up on covering radio and this

nascent podcast area back in around 2015 or

so. And then Jack said, well, you

helped launch the podcast division over there. Go build us a

podcast. You've been on radio. I was like, what? So

it was definitely that do as I say, not as I do. I

had to figure out how to do, do, do. And,

I I just did it. And for MediaVillage, I

created, their first two podcasts, and it was

originally called Insider Insights. And

then I also launched their Advancing Diversity podcast.

So, you know, it was nerve wracking, but

it was sort of a, paid learning opportunity.

And I did about, I don't know, 65 episodes there.

And then, when I left Media Village with the pandemic,

Jack gifted me my podcast to take and,

used some episodes there again at MediaVillage, and I redubbed

it as Insider Interviews. What were some of those

early challenges with launching a podcast having not been

in this space in particular? And, you know, I mean, understanding audio

production and content, but, right, the the

delivery of podcast was probably very foreign.

And, I think in 2015, there was better

tech, but, you know, probably still not as good as we have it today.

Yeah. That's right. You know,

everything was, by trial.

So I had heard about, for example, Libsyn,

and I selected that as my hosting platform

and tried to consume everything I could. Luckily, I was in a position

where my job was content creation and

marketing and writing and journalism about the industry. So I

was absorbing as much as I could. That's always been my MO is

just read, read, read. And so

I'd heard about Libsyn. Maybe I got to go to one of the early stage

podcast movements. Not quite sure how they landed on my radar,

but, that was terrific. And then,

I had to figure out what equipment to buy. We

hadn't invested in a big budget. I thought I think that

I got, a, Blue Yeti.

But then, because I was going all over the place and

trying to grab interviews at conferences and things like that, I

got my little I have them here. You wanna see? Oh, yeah.

Sure. I'm going to, for those listening, I've got

my eye rig lavaliers. So

these little guys are, little portable

lavaliers that just clip on. And I swear to

you, the first 40 episodes I did, I used these iRig

lavalier microphones and plugged them into my iPhone.

And, you know, it was not bad quality.

And, honestly, you, in the last episode that

we did, were recorded via those iRig

lavaliers too, 6 years later. I was just going to mention that

I had the pleasure of using those with you at Podcast Movement. We just sat

down at a bench outside, in what they call the confer the

hallway track at podcasting conferences. Yeah. We did the

interview, and, yeah, it sounded great. In fact, we'll we'll make sure we put a

link to that episode here in the show notes. So if you wanna check it

out, you can. There's, other great guests on that episode that are definitely worth,

your time. Thank you. So one other thing that is

very interesting about your strategy is that what you

are doing is you are basically selling a

storytelling package. Right?

And and some people will hear the idea of selling access to a podcast

and immediately cringe. And I can understand that

because there are lots of people who do it in a very shady way. They

don't disclose that that's what they're doing. They don't make it clear that this is

paid for, or worse. I've actually been I've

had people email me, ask me to be a guest on their show. I've accepted,

and then I get sent an invoice to appear. And I said, that wasn't

really what you asked me. And so there's there are plenty of folks who don't

like it, but, you are way more open and transparent about it,

and you have a very specific target. So tell us a little bit

about how insider interviews works in the in the content package you are

offering people today. You know, Matthew, thank you for giving me the opportunity

to explain this because as I said, I come from content and journalism,

and, I ran ad sales marketing at some major

media networks. And the way that you

close a deal is through listening to the customer,

and listening is a huge part of marketing.

We know that podcasting does a great job with engagement

and trust in, the the guests and the

hosts. It's one of the most effective forms of advertising.

But I don't sell advertising on the show, and I don't sell a guest

spot. What I do is sell, as you said, a content

marketing package. And not every episode is

underwritten, as I like to call it. But there

have been guests who know that as a journalist,

I'm pretty good at pushing this out through social

media. I'm sort of, as I say, in the algorithm

in LinkedIn. So when I post, it's sort of

like the old ad when EF Hutton talks,

people listen. I don't know. But my posts get really nice

pickup on LinkedIn, and I'm very passionate. I'm an

early adopter in social media, so I'm I'm all over the place with

that. So my guests will receive a

robust, presence as well as all of

the assets, both audio and video, as you know we do.

But then, they can hire me

to write a journalistically sound companion

article that I can pretty much get published in

a trade publication. And, again, because insider interviews

is about the industry of media marketing and advertising,

there's a handful of trades, that, you know,

will be appropriate for placing that article,

and I've had bylines in most of them.

So that or they can take that article, and they can give it to their

PR shop and and pitch it out for coverage. I can

ghostwrite it. They can put it on their blog. They'll get

the audio clips, the video clips.

So they're getting basically an executive

profile. And I'll just reiterate

that audio is a trusted medium. When you have a journalist

writing something that's not shilling, but giving you a profile of

someone, it creates a likability. It creates a trust

for and about that executive. Sometimes it gives

them a platform that they don't otherwise have if they have

to explain something in a detailed way like I'm doing

right now, going on and on too long. You're not doing that.

But So there's that.

I do have news. Big news. Sure. Let's hear it.

So, Matthew, I think I have to give you credit for this. I

believe that on one of your shows, you talked about segments.

And I think that that is a a terrific

trend in podcasting these days is chunking out your show so

that, people understand what's coming next. I know

that you have, like, a regular question that you ask. Well,

I've had some mid roles before. And

because I like to share detail about a vertical,

about different channels, I've worked across print,

television, audio, whatever. I started a segment

that is sponsorable called the inside

scoop. So it's like a 5 minute deep dive

as a mid roll. So my next

episode coming out, you'll hear, an underwriter

who is giving us a deep dive on digital out of

home, for example. So yeah. That is

a great idea for a segment. And in fact, I used to

have clients who and and this is not uncommon in the podcasting

world anymore. You would hear a pre roll early on in the show. Right?

This episode is brought to you by whatever. Stay tuned to

the end of the episode where we talk to so and so about this. And

then after the episode, they would have this post roll, and the post roll would

essentially be like a short interview with someone

related to that brand. And I think it's a great

way to really tell that story and keep

people there for post rolls, especially if you could find a nugget of

information from this person that is value add to your

target audience. So I I love this idea and and wish you the

best of luck with it, and, we'll make sure, you know, we'll

make sure people have links to the show so they could check this out and

and know how to contact you. I I before we get to those final questions

that I do wanna ask you, one thing that everybody wants to know is

better marketing for their podcast. And as somebody with

a deep background in marketing,

in broadcasting, in television radio, right, all of these

different places, are there 1 or 2

strategies or pieces of information of advice that you would give to podcasters

on how to be more successful with their

show? You know,

Matthew, the thing that I, so I also train

companies who wanna launch, and I focus on b to b, who

wanna launch their first podcast. For example, I'm the

producer of, the Angie Trade Up podcast,

formerly known as Angie's List. And one of the first

things that we talked about is why does Angie wanna have a podcast?

Why does anyone wanna have a podcast?

And if you can answer the why, then you're

miles ahead. If it's because you just wanna hear

yourself talk, most people don't. They don't like the way their voice sounds, and it's

startling to them. But if you just wanna

hear yourself talk, that's a perfectly good reason if you have

something to say. If it is to amplify an

executive, if you wanna share thought leadership, if you wanna get more

trusted, if you want to be available

to the customer, along their journey, you know, while they're

driving or washing the dishes or whatever it is. Those

are all solid initial reasons.

But starting with the why informs your marketing.

So, you know, if it is

because you want to reach them anywhere, you might want to consider how

long your show is. It if it's to be a

companion while they're walking the dog or washing the dishes, it might

be brief but sweet. If it's just to get,

attention, then it might be

I I don't know. But fill in the blanks. So it starts with the

why. And then, you you know, there's

nothing really new under the sun when it comes to promotion and

marketing. Fill in the blanks. We all do the

same thing. I'm I'm thrilled to be here on your show.

You do a great job with podcasting tech, and I

learn a lot from it. So I'm excited to have

this opportunity. You were on my show. Now we've exposed

ourselves to different audiences, in,

you know, first cousin kind of related way.

And then we could also do a pod

swap, where my podcast appears in your

show flow, and you can tee it up and then your

audience will hear an entire episode, or just the trailer

swap, etcetera. Certainly, when you're

when you're a bigger personality, you might take your

show live and have it in front of an audience. But

really, it's understanding that

everything you touch needs to continue

your brand message and reflect your brand in the way

you want. So we talked about social media earlier. You

know, are you going to align with college

kids smashing a beer can on their head or, you know, a certain

political persuasion or whatever it is? Or are you

going to kinda have your,

buttoned up approach and have

informative, helpful social media, tools and

tactics. So, I mean, I could go on and on, but,

let me know if I missed a specific. No. I think that's a a great

answer. It's something we've always talked about too is that in the importance of understanding

your why. Right? We so many people launch a podcast and

they obsess over downloads and really the focus of

their show isn't about how big the audience is,

but, you know, maybe it's about the people they meet while they're interviewing or

how many of the people who are listening engage in their products. And, you know,

some folks, it only takes a 100 downloads to, you know, get those

3 or 4 customers that are gonna make the difference between a good year and

a bad year for for what it is that they're doing. So understanding your why

and then strategizing around that, I think, is is just super

important. So as a reminder, we are chatting with Ebi Moss of Insider

Interviews podcast and Moss appeal. We'll have a link to all of her

socials as well as she has a a Bitly link with everything that she has

going on so you can easily check things out, listen to some

content, you know, just just see everything that she has to

offer and and check it out, and maybe even you wanna check out that 5

minute segment in her show, where you can, you know, get access

to her audience. So before we let you go, yes, we are gonna ask you

the questions that we ask everybody. And so the first one is, is

there a place you would like to see improvement in podcasting in

general?

You know, we've gotten very complicated as an

industry. When I first launched my

shows, you know, there were a handful of options.

I personally get confused between which

AI tool might be a good companion to help me

generate my clips or my show notes or whatever it is. I don't know

about hosting platforms. I if if I had a wish list,

it would be give me a cheat sheet of this is great for this.

This is good for that. So I'm frankly a

little overwhelmed. You know, my hair was straight

before I started working in podcasting, and now it's like

That is a I like that piece of advice. Maybe that's something that we can,

we can work to put together here. Help me.

But, Matt, I I do wanna give you credit also

because when we met, you gave me my own

custom podcast beacon.

I cannot tell you how popular I've become

at cocktail parties. Thanks to you.

Honestly, we talk so much about the challenge of

discovery. So we talked about LinkedIn, for example.

There's not a lot of necessarily conversion

from a social media post on almost any platform

directly to listening to an episode.

So we need tools to help break down the barriers, and I

think that the podcast beacon that you've created has done

that. I have, like, people giving me

jazz hands, like, wow. When all of

a sudden, I can get them to wave this

magic beacon, and all of a sudden, it opens up a

link to my show, and it takes the barrier out of the

way. So hats off to you, man. I think it's just,

I've gotten an extra 17 listeners thanks to you in the last

week. Awesome. Oh, I'm so glad to hear that, and, I'm

gonna make you record that later for me. And we're gonna use

that in some of our marketing. And and, yeah,

for for those, curious podcast beacon, we are,

actually making a big push right now. We're thinking about how we can partner with

different companies and brands so that they can give beacons out to their,

clients and customers. So if that's something that's interesting to you, please do not

hesitate to, reach out to us. And, I'm so glad you answered that. To say

that. Yeah. I did not. I'm I might, though. It's not sponsored.

So are is there any technology that you

would like you know, it's on your wish list as we start to think about

the holidays. Maybe it's something that you've wanted to purchase or maybe something

that hasn't even been created yet that you'd like to see made so that, you

know, your production can be a little bit easier.

You know, I'm always, challenged. You know, we see the big

microphone in front of my face. Very happy that I

got my my Shore microphone, thanks

to a giveaway. But I see a lot

of the little, clip on lavaliers now,

and I question the quality of them. I

love the fact I happen to use Descript to edit

my shows, and I love that we have studio sound that

can compensate for a lot of the challenges of microphones

these days. I typically will also

wear, you know, the big can headphones when I'm

recording, and that also is not good for my hair.

So I'm also confused. And if you could give us a cheat sheet

for, good smaller

mobile pieces of recording and

listening devices. That would be great. Awesome. I think we have

some of that, but I will I will make sure we put something together for

this episode specifically. And then, right afterwards, I've got a couple of personal

suggestions for you that I think you'll appreciate. And lastly,

is there a podcast out there right now that when

that drops, you are stopping what you were listening to or,

you know, it's just it's one of those have to listen to shows, on your

list. Okay. I might

have to name 4 because my mind was going. As many

as you want. My boy my boy, Peter Kafka, is

back. He had Recode Media. Now he has channels.

And the great thing about that, he took a, I don't know, maybe

6 months hiatus, and he raised the bar for me in

terms of a media and marketing type of podcast.

I I really like his style, gets

very informative guests, as do I, by the way.

So I like that show. I I find, the

relationship with, Professor Galloway and Kara

Swisher fascinating on Pivot and how they get into some

things that's very, informative from a

zeitgeist perspective about the world. I

like laughing with Smartless. And then the

episode that you were on with me, I am gonna give a shout out

to, Jason Hoch, who started a company called

Waveland. He ran How Stuff Works, of course,

huge franchise. But he has a show called Noble

that has been, scoring really high in the

podcast Rankers. And it's a creepy, creepy

topic about finding where the bodies were

not buried. I'll just tell you that. Yeah.

Noble. And it's, a true crime show. So

true crime always draws you in. So there you go.

News, comedy, business. I think I covered them all. Yeah. You you

have got me hooked, and it's funny that you brought up both Peter

and, Cara, who were former colleagues of mine, with

for, Dow Jones, and always loved, chatting with them as well. Yeah.

Well and we have really loved chatting with you again today, and I look forward

to doing this many, many more times. Thank you. We've been chatting with Ebi

Moss of Moss Appeal and insider interviews with Ebi

Moss. Links to all of that in the show notes. Please,

please go check out her stuff and, give her a follow on social media.

She does have some great content out there that, everybody can learn

from, whether they're a podcaster or or any other type of professional. Amy, thank

you so much for joining us today. Thank you, Matthew. Thanks for

joining us today on Podcasting Tech. There are links to all the

hardware and software that help power our guest content and

podcasting tech available in the show notes and on our website at

podcastingtech.com. You can also subscribe to the show on your

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while you're there. Thanks, and we'll see you next time on Podcasting

Tech.