Amplify! A Podcast Designed to Educate Accounting Marketers, With Katie Tolin
Katie Tolin joined the Association for Accounting Marketing (AAM) when she became the first-ever marketing professional at an accounting firm in the early 2000s, where she built an accounting marketing and growth culture within the firm. Since then, she had rose through the ranks and even became a past president of the association. Katie’s focus within the association is to provide content to help other accounting marketers.
One way she helps deliver content is through AAM’s ‘Amplify’ podcast (Apple, Spotify), which has been active since 2017. Recently, I had a conversation with Katie about her experience hosting and growing the show:
A Head Start on the Podcasting Wave
With a desire to contribute meaningful content and give back to the community, Katie was among the first volunteers to host the podcast when it was first released in 2017.
“I was part of the AAM leadership team that brought the podcasting concept to the members,” said Katie. “And way back then, this wasn't popular. Finding members who actually knew what a podcast was and how you produced it and what it looked like was a challenge.”
Katie was ahead of her time. In 2020, the global pandemic created an environment ripe for podcasts to launch. In fact, according to Listen Notes, more than 1 million new podcasts launched in 2020 — 3x more than the 336,701 that launched in 2019. This major influx also brought more attention and awareness of podcasts. According to Pew Research, a full 42% of Americans listen to podcasts at least once a month and 31% listen weekly.
Business podcasts are the 4th most popular genre, behind Society & Culture, Education, and Art. The best part? Decision-makers listen to this content. According to a survey of over 2,700 users by LinkedIn, 44% of department heads, VPs, owners, and C-suites listen to podcasts.
The Amplify Podcast Evolution: A Strategic Rebrand
A podcast’s branding and positioning becomes critical as new shows enter the arena and more listeners start to tune in. To stay relevant, existing podcasts must adapt and evolve. For Amplify, this would mean a strategic transformation.
An Audience-Centric Rebrand
It’s easy to get caught up thinking of a podcast as a channel purely to impact the business. But if you run a business podcast, you have to constantly think about how the show delivers value to listeners—why qualitative research is so important. Katie and her team understood a major challenge facing her audience: marketers need validation of ideas. This helps to build confidence and momentum for marketing initiatives within their respective firms.
“For marketers to be successful in their organization, they need to buy in at a higher level from the firm leadership. They have to understand that marketing is important, and part of our job is to educate them and give credibility.”
This process was going through a rebrand of the podcast to become more audience-centric. The show name evolved from AAMplify! to Amplify, and the show artwork went through a design refresh, illustrated below.
Before:
After:
“Our podcast used to be very much AAM centered. It was all about us. And when we rebranded it, part of it was like, how do we make this apply to the wider accounting profession? One, because they need to hear marketing. Two, it's going to add credibility to what each and every one of our members are doing.”
A Change in Format
In the beginning, the AAM team intended to hit a regular twice-monthly publication frequency, but found it challenging to do so with volunteer hosts. This led to erratic episode frequency and lost momentum.
“We tried to have one podcast host. We had some turnover on our committees, and then our host was gone. And so then we started doing random podcast hosts. Well, when you ask for volunteers and you take them, you don't know how good they are. And so we needed to rethink our strategy if we want to have any sort of good hosting.”
In 2022, the podcast was transformed. Instead of being beholden to a regular publication frequency, episodes were released in batches of 6-7 episodes at a time. These “seasons” of content focused on a particular theme like employer branding, business development, or digital marketing.
“By moving to a season [format], we would have five, six, seven episodes around a general theme,” said Katie. “You can listen to any one of those and walk away with lots of great insights.”
This format is currently working for the AAM team. It compliments the rotating host model, where a single person takes point on hosting. This involves coordinating interviews, writing questions, and collaborating with other teams within the association.
Continuous Learning: A Trait of Top Podcast Hosts
Reflecting on her experience as a podcast host, I asked Katie what stands out most to her. She revealed her love for engaging in insightful conversations with knowledgeable guests, and using her interviewing skills to extract expertise. Furthermore, she expressed how each interview serves as a learning experience.
“I have a big continuous improvement mindset,” Katie continued, “I don't care if you put together your first episode or you've put together your hundredth, think about what you can do and how you can do it better and how you can change it up, I think that's good for you. And I think it's good for your listeners.”
It’s rare for a business podcast to still be running seven years later. In fact, less than 19% of all podcasts are active, having released an episode in the most recent 90 days. The longevity of the Amplify podcast is a testament to Katie’s mindset of continuous learning and growth.
The Next Phase of Growth for Amplify
After seven years of running the Amplify podcast, Katie sees even more potential for growth. The podcast audio is valuable, but with transcription software, there can be many different ways to repurpose podcast content.
“There's a boatload of content,” said Katie. “Not every member listens. Not everyone in the accounting industry listens. How do we get this out to more people in a format? We're actually talking as an association on how do we turn this into something else, a checklist, a guide, an ebook or whatever, now that we have all this great content to get it in the hands of other people. And I think that's what's incredibly great about the podcast.”
This concept—known as content repurposing—is when you take content from a single source (e.g. a podcast) and reformat it so it can be consumed natively in a given channel. The Podcast Flywheel content marketing framework below illustrates the range of content that can be produced from a single podcast episode.
Take The Next Step In Your Podcasting Journey
The story of the Amplify podcast shows us that it’s important to learn, grow, and evolve over time. Whether you’re brooding on a podcast idea, only recently launched a show, or you’re a few years into your podcasting journey, there is always something new to learn and pivots that must be made.
Red Cedar Marketing helps professional services firms use podcast media to fuel their marketing strategies. Launch a new show, grow your audience, and connect your podcast to business outcomes with our podcast marketing services. Simply reach out to learn more.
