Why I Do Long(ish) Shows

"Hey you! Marketing podcast guy." (As host of The BeanCast, I get that a lot. Or at least I do in these fake scenarios, so just play along.) "Hey marketing podcast guy. Why are your shows so long? They need to be shorter. I don't have time to listen to all that!"

Okay, so the above scene never happened (just in case you're still wondering) but in essence this sort of thing has been said to me by dozens of people of various marketing specialties in various settings. And at first it kind of got to me. I wondered if I was driving audience away from the show by letting it run too long.

Mind you, I was never even remotely considering shortening the show. I mean I try to keep it to an hour, but it never occurred to me to actually listen to this advice and do 10 or 20 minute or even shorter shows. And my reason was simple:

I like listening to longer podcasts.

It's wasn't scientific. It wasn't based on lots of research and experience. I just set out to make a show that I would want to listen to because I couldn't find one like it. Period.

But the commentary got my brain juices flowing and I started to wonder about a few things. Because while many people whom I respected stridently advised me to do a shorter show, most of my listeners would tell me to let the show go on as long as it needed to. This dichotomy seems strange to me. If my show was too long, why was my audience growing? If my content was hard to sample, why were people listening to the entire show and praising it?

And then it hit me! And I believe this is a core truth of the matter:

Some people like podcasts. And some people like the idea of podcasts.

You'll Find Your Heart Where Your Time Is

For most busy marketing executives, they like the idea of new technology and social networks, but many of them find it hard to invest time in them. Who has time to browse the Web aimlessly reading blogs? Who has time to watch an endless parade of YouTube Videos? And certainly who has time to sit down and listen to podcasts? The people in this camp are looking for targeted facts and concise information. They're usually not looking for a regular mental investment, because that's not where their heart is. Their heart is with the end goal that comes from using these tools, which is business success.

But there are some of us who have embraced the medium of podcasting as more than just a good marketing technique that can quickly engage your audience. We listen, because we love podcasts.

I would venture to guess that many of the people who regularly subscribe and listen to this show, also regularly subscribe and listen to half a dozen or more shows, many of which probably clock in at 90 minutes plus. I do it every week with a couple that clock in at over two hours!

What's more, the subject matter is probably on a range of topics. For me I listen to all kinds of stuff, like TWiT, MacBreak Weekly, Video Game Outsiders, The DS Life Podcast, Marketing Over Coffee, The M Show, EZ Mode Unlocked, Chatterbox and a few others. Plus, that's not even touching on the various video podcasts I watch, like COOP and Diggnation.

Satisfy Both Audiences But Look To Your Core

The point I'm trying to make is not that one side is right and the other is wrong. I don't believe there is any accounting for personal preferences. What I'm saying is that it's important for us as marketers to never base our opinions of new medias based on our experience with a select group of other marketers or even insights into mass market behavior.

Conventional wisdom would say that if you want to attract people to a new medium, you give them bite size doses to swallow so they can become comfortable with it first. It seems reasonable. You're trying to get people to buy in to a whole new way of experiencing content. You want to spoon feed them. And for many fringe people, this is enough. It sparks interest and gets them listening or watching.

However, we know that businesses are not built on fringe advocates. Businesses are built on core and loyal and rabid advocates. And while it's important to cast the net wide to create a mass audience if you want to be ubiquitous and grow quick and thin, you have to also concentrate on the needs of your core audience in order to have depth and stability.

Early Adopters Are Voracious

We sometimes forget that early adopters are voracious consumers and gravitate toward the most gluttonous examples of the content they seek. Look at the early file traders that sparked the mp3 movement. They weren't collecting songs just to listen to them. They were collecting songs because they could. Or look at the people who made YouTube what it is. Even though most of the videos were short, they would eagerly consume dozens and dozens at a sitting. Early adopters want more, not less content.

Another thing we forget about podcasting in particular is that this is not really new. It's radio-like content put online. And as we know from the talk-radio explosion, people like to hear other people talk...a lot. I don't know of a single talk program on traditional mediums that lasts less than an hour. And the same holds true for much of the top podcasts online.

So yes, I agree that the best way to reach a wider audience of non-adopters is to create shorter programming that they can sample. And acknowledging this fact, I've created Fast Takes: The Best of The BeanCast to fill that role.

Yet I would like to point out that Fast Takes is being predominantly listened to by the same audience who currently listens to the hour long show. Just sayin'.