Both Ashley and Melissa are natural-born connectors. Given a few spare minutes, we love connecting with other marketers to share ideas, pick brains, and commiserate.
And so, independently, both of us were filling our calendars with calls of this sort.
And independently, were considering the idea: Why not record these virtual meet-ups so more marketers can share in the struggles, solutions, and laughs?
So everyone can learn the insights being shared.
So everyone can enjoy hilarious stories about marketing gone wrong.
So everyone can hear their struggles and excitement mirrored in others.
However, big ideas require execution. And like every 2 Pizza Marketer, we were both already very busy with our own day jobs. (Sometimes, comically so.)
In fact, I was already hosting a podcast (Finding Focus) for my own company and was learning how much work they can be.
Did you know that >90% of podcasts created don't even make it to their 7th episode! If we were going to create the podcast for small-team marketers, we wanted to do it right.
So one non-descript weekday, I tentatively asked Ashley if she'd be interested in working on the podcast together.
Luckily, she said...
And, thus, our podcast journey began in August 2022.
We got into the podcasting world with a mutual understanding: Let's do our best with the resources and time we have to produce insightful, relatable, and useful episodes for small-team marketers.
And, breaking the mold, we accidentally managed to produce a podcast episode each week for one year straight!
Our first season ran through April of 2023.
Our second season featured a hot new look and an exciting roster of fresh guests.
And our third season launches Fall 2023... to follow on the release of our new website!
What's our secret?
It's that it is easier to create, run, and grow a show when you have a co-host! Trading each week of between the two of us. Sourcing guests from our distinct networks. Complementing each others' interests and personalities. Cutting our work in half.
Here are a few other ways we've built something that we can continue into the future:
We started just with audio. Although we record on Zoom and use Spotify tools (so we could publish video), we only publish audio - and use a few video clips here and there on social. Keep it simple.
We use powerful, multi-purpose tools: Anchor (now Spotify for Podcasters), Canva, Descript are our absolute must-haves. (We've tried a lot of others, so feel free to ask us for opinions!)
We created a LinkedIn page as our main point of distribution. We've found that the best podcasts set it up a business page for their show so it's easy to tag in other posts, post your own content, roll out "new episodes" and leverage your guests' presence on LinkedIn.
You can hear even more tips on what we learned in our first season on this episode!
And, in the end, we're proud to say we've built a show that has a truly unique POV. Two women—at different stages of their own marketing careers—hosting a variety of marketers from early-career to CMOs and founders at early-stage startups and fast-growing unicorns.
We invite guests who work on small teams - in a large variety of roles. Specialists, managers, Heads of..., CMOs, founders, you name it. They share what they worked on days ago, so you leave with frameworks, tactics, and strategies you can execute on tomorrow. And of course, you'll hear a marketing mess or two.
And that's how the 2PM story goes. 🍕
If you're interested in being a guest or a sponsor - we'd love to hear from you. Shoot us an email at 2pizzamarketers@gmail.com.
Comments