What Pandora Needs To Do To Win The Podcast Wars

There's no bigger thrill than being able to tell your clients that they are on a new podcast platform. Now, I've chatted about Pandora in the past and what it means to podcasters and all the things that get you explosives in the microphone here. But the fact of the matter is the rollout has been a little slower than expected, but it's happening. And now, gosh darn it, I want Pandora to win. And Pandora could win this game. Yes, there's the thing where it's obvious. They are Mac, they are Windows, they are Android, they are iOS. But there are some things that Pandora has that the others don't have. And if they implement this and if they utilize this and if they leverage this, they could do some pretty amazing things here in what we'll, for the lack of a better term, call the podcast wars. First thing you need to do when pondering Pandora, we've chat about this in past episodes, is just realize that more Americans every day now, we'll talk about the international thing in a second. But more North Americans every day log into Pandora than listen to podcasts. This is an audience that owns, this is a platform that owns people going to computers and going to devices and going to phones and going to, you know, Internet connected things for content. They already have the audience, they already have the mindshare. If you look at the infinite dial report coming out of Edison Research, Pandora is doing better than everyone else. And that will remain for a while if they do basically what should be obvious, but for many it isn't. That's what I want to chat about it on this episode. So first thing is, I was chatting with a client yesterday, two days ago, and we were chatting about strategies for Pandora. And what was interesting was, truth be told, yes, I have a Spotify account, yes, I have an Apple Music account, yes, I have accounts on all these places. But Pandora knows me the best. If I want to listen to my 80s music, if I want my 80s mix, or I want my mix of the stuff that Paul is in the mood for, or even if I want to go mellow, Pandora is the platform by default. They've learned me better. Yes, they're a customization agent, I believe probably in hand to hand combat would do better than any of the other platforms out there. But because they were first, I've been training them for a long time. And because they were first, that's why they have the mind churn, because they were first, that's why so many people go to them by default. So you have to understand they have the numbers, but they also have the goodwill. See, if Pandora were to come to me and say, hey, you know, we've got all your podcasts. We'll chat about that in a second. And they say, we've got the customization, we've got all of these things. I'm going to go over to them pretty quickly. So understand the numbers, understand the customization. Now let's chat about what Pandora needs to do. Number one, Pandora, bring all the podcasters in. I understand your hesitance, your desire to do it strategically, to do it without making a lot of mistakes. Bring them all in. Spend your money on this one. Take the time, take the effort and speaking. You know, most of my clients are in and I appreciate that. But I know most podcasters really aren't giving you the time of day because they can't get the show in yet. And honestly, promotion of it as a platform to others because there aren't so many options is difficult to do as well. So number one, bring all the podcasters in. Number two, give all the podcasters premium accounts. It's not going to cost you that much. We're going to be using it mostly to listen to podcasts. Yes, there'll be some streaming fees, but if you give all the podcasters premium accounts and heck, you did it to all the T Mobile users last year, they can get used to it. They can start using it on their Alexa, on their Google home. You know, the five people with home pods can use it as well or I guess when iOS13 comes out. But the fact of the matter is get podcasters playing in the Pandora play field again. A lot of things that will help with the explosive sims, you'll make us evangelists, and the grand scheme of things, it won't cost you that much. Heck, if you were there with a booth at podcast Movement this year, handing out, just show me your podcast and we'll give you a year premium account. You'll get us using it, you'll get us playing with it, you'll get us at a good place. So that's number one, bring all the podcasters in. Do it immediately. Number two, use your unsold inventory or even do a cost benefit analysis on what it would cost to actually decline some ads for this. Use your unsold inventory to promote podcasts. You have the tech, you can say, hey, you're listening on your phone right now. You can get podcasts. Click here. You could get a conversion that is absolutely fantastic if you did it right. And if you use that unsold Inventory. If you sell that, run a house or that cheap stuff to tell listeners to Pandora, then they can get podcast on there as well. It's gonna, you know, a lot of them don't know when a lot of them won't realize how easy it is. And if it's Pandora speaking to them on Pandora about podcasts on Pandora, that transition will be EAS easy. You do a nice simple click through. Different ad for the phone, different ad for the car system, different ad for the desktop, different ad for the iPad. Speak to them, bring them over to it. Use your unsold inventory. You will do one the next one start thumbs up and thumbs down asap. I again appreciate in the grand scheme of things your desire to do things correctly. But just start collecting that data. Know if people like a podcast or if people don't like a podcast, take that. Start doing that as soon as you possibly can. Even if you need to just collect the data and return to it later. But starts up with the thumbs up and the thumbs down. The next thing I want you to do and I'm gonna take a quick break here. There are some of you watching this live on Facebook. I occasionally record the podcast report live on Facebook. If you're live and you have any questions and you have any thoughts about Pandora on podcasts, go ahead and do it in the comments. I got the screen for that and we'll go back anyway, back to the content. The next one Invite curators. Spotify is who they are today because of the influencer playlists. Apple bought Beats 1 because of that influencer. Pandora needs to have curators. You need to have curators of true crime shows. You need to have curators of the TV shows. You need to have curators of business shows and health shows and that type of thing. Bring in curators, give them a channel, give them an area. Heck, just give them ads inside of Pandora for them to be able to talk about that playlist, that type of thing. Maybe that's the way you bring them in. Make curators part of the process. Your strength has always been the Automatic, you know what 80s music I like. But if you bring curators in, that will help and then maybe battle the curators. Get the curators to get the podcasts that have the most up thumbs down. Have America's Next Curation Expert contest or something like that. You do that, you'll put yourself in the same league as Spotify, you'll put yourself in the same league as Apple and that will grab a new level of people that you haven't got elsewhere. And then finally, the last thing you need to do, Pandora, to win this game, is you got to get international fast. The podcasting game is an international game, and I know you're looking at it, and I know that it's an issue of licensing, and I know that it's not easy, and I know that it's not an issue of flipping a switch. Okay, let's go international. I realize there's a lot of things at play here, but for podcasting, it's international play. And I'm going to suggest this to you, Pandora. Maybe podcasting is international. Music isn't just a thought, just an idea. But anyway, Pandora, bring all the podcasters in. Bring them all down. Give them a premium account. Let them see how awesome it is. Let them see what the interface is. Make yourself one of the players. You don't want people in the event walking by the booth going, oh, I'm not on there yet. Get everybody on there. Do that. Take your unsold inventory to promote podcasts. Maybe you do that with influencers. Maybe you do that device specific, that type of thing. Get thumbs up and thumbs down going asap. That will show that you care about the content that everybody listens to. Invite curators to be part of it and get international fast. If you do these things, Pandora, you can have a serious dent in what's going on right now. I'm looking at my stats. I've promoted it. It's interesting. What percentage of my audience is looking at this? You know, we're hearing organizations that tell their audience to go to Pandora, and they're seeing Pandora with more downloads than even Apple Music. You can do this. You've got the goodwill, you've got the numbers. And now, thanks here to the podcast report. You got yourself a strategy. I know you can do this, Pandora. I hope you do this. Pandora. Talk to everyone soon. Until the next episode. Bye.