8 months since launching our strategy and marketing division

8 months into Listen Labs. What have we been doing?

A lot can happen in 8 months. Especially in podcasting. Awards can be won, events attended, commissions landed and new chart-topping shows can be launched (see Olivia Attwood’s So Wrong It’s Right). The term visualised podcast can be used on BBC2 and create mass discussion across an industry and beyond.

We officially launched our strategy, launch and growth division, Labs just 6 months ago. But, whether it's managing paid media, facilitating launches or offering our insights on full slate overhauls, we have been working on strategy and marketing projects for years.

Labs was the name we gave to that work to bring it beyond the relationships we already have, to make our offering clearer and elevate our services. So… what exactly have we been doing since November?

For some clients we’ve been doing a total re-haul of their strategy. Taking a full slate of shows from a reactive and unclear offering into a fortified roster that stacks up against wider business goals. We bring the best minds from our team, editorially unpicking what is working, what isn’t, and where the missed opportunities are. Commercially, analysing the data and monetisation effectiveness, and introducing new partners, models and ways of working. For these clients we've been clearing the path and making the approach and potential results crystal clear.

For others, we’ve helped launch new shows. Fine tuning their ideas and format, then built bespoke marketing plans to bring the vision to life - before handing back the reigns.

And underpinning it all is our growing marketing service.

From managing paid budgets to have maximum impact on key podcast metrics…. to originating and executing creative campaigns that go further. Our own shows have become the testing ground, and the results are the knowledge and tactics we apply through Labs.

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Some of these projects last 6 weeks, some 3 months, and a couple a full year. Some launches turn into ongoing relationships. In the past 8 months, we've realised the potential of Labs is without limit.

When you launch a new division, you have to think carefully about who is going to run the projects. The temptation was to hire an agency strategist. But we'd provided these services before having the name Labs and the whole point of Labs is to provide real-life insight and actionable recommendations from our team.

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We aren’t strategy consultants producing 100 slides of graphs. We are programme makers and marketers solely focused on podcasts. We live and breathe podcasts. We read the newsletters and reports. We know the kit and we trial new software and ways of working. We put podcasts on TV and create fresh IP for brands after developing their shows.

By being in the weeds of the industry, the team can bring all of that knowledge to Labs. It was a no brainer. We turned producers, execs and marketing managers into strategists overnight. They didn’t do anything differently.

I love a strategy as much as anyone and I’ve worked with some of the absolute best around, but often what a client really needs is someone to tell the the answer, or pose the question, in layman’s terms, in person or on a call, without the noise.

So that’s what we’ve been doing.

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