While the podcast is on a break we’ve been hard at work assembling the industry’s best and brightest publishers to share the strategies and learnings behind their successful podcasts and newsletters, from top newsbrands launching paid podcasts to indie newsletters nailing their commercial strategies.
The Publisher Podcast and Newsletter Summit – held on June 12th in London – will focus on sharing expertise and practical discussions that will help shape and refine your podcast and newsletter strategies, and set you up to take advantage of growing opportunities.
The event is suitable for editorial staff with responsibility for newsletters and/or podcasts, dedicated executives or senior managers with a strategic overview. For those who can’t join on the day, there’s a video-on-demand package available on the ticketing page.
Ahead of the final agenda reveal, Esther, Peter and Chris explain why Media Voices is running a dual-track Summit dedicated to podcasts and newsletters, and pick out which sessions they’re most looking forward to.
The Publisher Podcast Summit
Esther: There’s so much I’m looking forward to – workshops on making smaller podcasts a part of your revenue mix, panels on packaging and selling podcasts – but I’m most looking forward to Hannah Ajala’s session on marketing and discoverability. She’s got a tonne of experience in podcasts and audio for publishers like the BBC and CBC and is presenter of Love, Janessa, so I can’t wait to hear her tips and strategies for how publishers can make their podcasts stand out.
Chris: Esther’s taken mine – rude – because I was also looking forward to the practical aspects of Hannah’s talk. But, on that theme, I’m also really excited to hear how podcasters can go ‘From Pod To Vod’ with Head of Editorial Video at Immediate Media Paul Doyle. Immediate does some of the best podcasts out there, audio and video both, with Radio Times, HistoryExtra, Good Food and more. Given how much talk there was last year about exploring the video podcast space I think this is going to be a cracking opportunity to take in some lessons about how to do video podcasts effectively (and maybe to convince my colleagues here to do video podcasts too).
Peter: There are some things I absolutely love about my job and getting to be on stage with three of the smartest people in podcasting is one of them. I’m speaking with the FT’s Head of Audio Cheryl Brumley, Stevie Derrick from The Week Junior’s ‘Mysteries of Science’ podcast, and Haymarket’s Head of Podcasts and former Editor of PodPod (RIP) Adam Shepherd for our Lessons from Award Winning Podcasts panel. I’ve done these sessions for a while now and BBC founder Lord Reith would absolutely love them – Informative, Educational and Entertaining. I’m also looking forward to Fernando Pacheco’s podcast keynote. He hosts Monocle’s The Stack podcast, which I absolutely love and I’m desperate to hear how Monocle Radio does what it does.
The Publisher Newsletter Summit
Esther: So I spoke to Maire Bonheim and David Alexander from The Telegraph a couple of episodes back about the publisher’s newsletter strategy, and one of the things they mentioned was that they’d actually cut and repositioned some of the newsletters in their portfolio. They’re running a session at the Newsletter Summit about how to turn around a newsletter that isn’t performing, from diagnosing what’s going on to deciding when to rebrand or pivot. It’s not an aspect many publishers are open about, but being honest about the state of a newsletter and assesssing the options is far better than it underperforming and finally getting the chop.
Chris: It’s cheating a bit maybe but I’m really looking forward to Sian Meades-Williams’ opening keynote – which is titled ‘How does that make you feel’? Sian’s Freelance Writing Jobs Newsletter probably has a 100% open rate from me: it provides utility and information through its listings of upcoming or live freelance writing opportunities, which is an invaluable service for a freelance hack like me. But it also has a hugely personality-led appeal. Sian’s voice is suffused throughout the entire newsletter, from the pithy and entertaining ways she describes the jobs, through to including her recommendations for what she’s watching and reading. Over the course of the summit I suspect we’re going to hear the importance of a strong personality for both podcasting and newsletters, and I think this one’s going to be a great place to kick off.
Peter: I was emailing one of our sponsors – Echobox – this morning and I’m seriously looking forward to their mini-cupcakes and their session on understanding newsletter analytics. Not sure if they’ll have cupcakes, but the FT’s workshop on monetising newsletters and revenue models is also a must.
If you’d like to join us at the Publisher Podcast & Newsletter Summit on June 12th, you can use the code MVFRIEND15 for 15% off. Tickets get you access to both streams throughout the day.
