Moving to Blubrry from Another Podcast Host - PCI 384

Speaker 0 00:00:00 The, one of the great things about podcasting is that syndication, it goes far and wide, and you can be everywhere or dang near everywhere. And some podcasters might wanna move to a platform that has exclusivity. But you'll notice that, uh, Spotify used to have a lot of exclusive shows and some pretty big ones, and that's no longer the case. They're, they're now making a lot of their formerly exclusive shows more widely distributed to, uh, you know, they have an RSS feed, so it can go anywhere. And I don't know if it exclusive is worth it. Now, if someone rates you a $200 million check, by all means . But you know, for the most part, us normal podcasters aren't gonna get that.

Speaker 1 00:00:47 You're listening to Podcast Insider, a weekly podcast bringing insights, advice, and insider tips and tricks to help you start, grow, and thrive through podcasting. With the support of your team here at Blueberry Podcasting, welcome. Let's dive in.

Speaker 0 00:01:02 Hi, I am Mike Dell, VP of Customer Relations here at Blueberry.

Speaker 3 00:01:06 And I'm Todd Cochrane, CEO, and founder of Blueberry.

Speaker 0 00:01:09 And today we're going to be talking about migration. It seems scary sometimes, but if you do it correctly and for the right reason, it can go very smoothly. So why do podcasters migrate? That's the question. There's lots of reasons podcasters might consider switching their podcast hosting platform for several reasons. Each aiming to better serve their needs or reach their goals or solve some issues that they're having. Could be for lots of reasons. So we have people that come to us for features or come to us because of support or just a ton of different reasons. We're gonna go through kind of a list and, and that stuff.

Speaker 3 00:02:02 We were at a recent event. The, the, the number one thing that was being talked about, about the time was the introduction of transcripts over at Apple. And folks were asking us, do we support transcripts? These are people that are, were not customers. And I said, yeah, we've, we've supported that for nearly a year and a half. And I kind of went into our, our feature set with transcripts and their current host doesn't support transcripts and or the transcript feature within the feed. And so for, for some folks, they were excited to be able to provide their own transcript to Apple versus the one that Apple's gonna provide. So that was one of the reasons, at least, that we were hearing at the last show we were at on why people would consider, uh, migrating. And for some folks it can be just a little bit scary, but Mike, I know that you and the rest of the support team have literally migrated hundreds and maybe thousands of shows. And I always tell people we're the foremost experts in helping people migrate. But let's go into some of those, some of those reasons. One of those reasons could be cost effectiveness. If a podcaster finds a hosting service that offers better value for the same or lower costs, they might switch. This could also include factors like storage bandwidth or additional features.

Speaker 0 00:03:28 Yeah, that's, that's a lot of what we get. Sometimes you will get people coming from various platforms that charge a whole lot more than we do or don't have the features that they want. Podcasting 2.0 being one of the big ones that lately has been driving migrations and it's, it's definitely, there's nothing wrong with migrating, it scares people because, oh, what happens to Apple and Spotify when I move and, and all that? Well, us in support here at Blueberry, we know all that stuff, which platforms are easy to migrate from and which are a little bit harder, frankly, but we can, we can get you over there and over to us or whatever. And it's, it's not scary. It, it just don't, don't be scared about it. And, but cost effectiveness is one of the reasons that people move from time to time. Say you're, you're paying some ridiculous amount of money and you wanna pay less.

Speaker 0 00:04:32 Or even if you're paying the same, you want more features for it. So anyway, another one's monetization opportunities. Another one we get when people move away from us or away from any other platform, sometimes it's because of an ad deal that that seems to be one, some of the bigger shows Will, will get an ad deal. And part of that ad deal is they have to move host to whatever the preferred host of the advertiser is. I warn people from doing that, do what you have to do. But a lot of times they'll leave, they'll do the ad deal and then they come back.

Speaker 3 00:05:12 Yeah. Another thing too is distribution reach. And while distribution usually is pretty equal among hosts, um, there are some exceptions. And, and the folks that move are generally from free platforms. So a podcaster might switch to a host that offers broader or a a k more efficient distribution channels, which we obviously do. We, we give the, uh, podcaster the ability to really have extreme flexibility in their distribution with their RSS feeds and so forth. But a lot of times people are moving, uh, to us from those free platforms 'cause they don't have some of those same, again, tied in feature sets along with the ability for ease of distribution and where other platforms have made it harder. And of course, an a big, big one is analytics. And our analytics and insights that we provide podcasters are one of those feature sets that allow a podcaster to better track engagement. And again, a lot of the people that move to at least blueberry are moving because of poor analytics at their podcast host and a platform that offers more detailed insights might be a strong reason to switch. And I know that we think we're one of those platforms.

Speaker 0 00:06:33 Yeah, for sure. We analytics on some of these free platforms and even some of the more expensive ones are not up to snuff for a lot of people. And that's one thing we have going for us at Blueberry is our stats are, uh, top notch. Uh, we give you all kinds of insights and stuff that, uh, other podcast hosts don't do. And user interface and ease of use, this is one that, yeah, we're at blueberry, we are probably a little bit more complicated, but not hard. It's just we have more options. And that can be attractive to podcasters in one way because they have options. But ease of use, once it's all set up, the the ease of publishing an episode will keep you at it. A lot of times. If it's difficult to publish an episode, you're less likely to do it.

Speaker 3 00:07:33 One thing too is we see often, and you, and I'll often chitchat back and forth, our podcasters moving to, migrating to us because of technical issues. Yeah. They've encountered something with a host such as downtime, slow uploads, poor customer support, uh, or maybe a conflict with maybe someone at another company. And these can really prompt a switch and a podcaster might need as well, more advanced features because maybe their platform, again, is limited that their current host doesn't offer. And again, it goes into some of the stuff that we've been adopting with Podcasting 2.0. While it's not necessarily a technical issue, it is a limitation of, of a feature over there. And Mike, we're, we're well known as well for our community support, our customer support, excuse me, and a great community. So just kudos to you and your team is oftentimes when we are at events, people come up and ask for you or one of the other team members that are, that have interacted with the customers. So that that interaction that we've had with folks that are podcasting specifically you and the team on the phone drives a lot of migrations to the, to our platform as well.

Speaker 0 00:08:49 Yeah. It's, it's, it's kind of nice, the way we do it is we kind of form a relationship with a lot of the podcasts. There's a lot of people that are pretty self-sufficient, and we never hear from 'em. That's great. But the ones we do hear from are usually something small or, or they just need to bounce an idea off or something. And it's, it's really great. I have a list of clients that are are near like family these days. Uh, and that's just something that you don't get at a lot of podcast hosts. So please give us a call if you wanna bounce an idea off and maybe we'll talk you into moving . So anyway, and brand alignment and values, that's, that's one that we don't see too much other than we let you be you and we do our own thing that we're good at and we stay outta your way. So maybe that's a thing. But there are some hosts that are very much brand, how would you say it? I, I'm trying, I'm, I'm at a loss for words here, but

Speaker 3 00:09:56 , it's basically podcasters are looking for someone that aligns with, with, with their way of thinking. It's just like brand alignment could be our, our biggest model here is you, you build your brand on your.com, right? And that resonates heavily with podcasters and for many of the other podcast hosts, you, you're building your brand on their platform. So from an alignment and value standpoint, a lot of folks align with us specifically because of our, one of our core values here.

Speaker 0 00:10:28 Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 3 00:10:29 That really drives, drives the engagement of folks moving to us. At the same time, scalability, oftentimes podcasters will outgrow the platform that they are on and, and as we, as we kind of term it, they kind graduate into a more modern podcast host that offers the features that they're looking for. That scalability is one of those situations where I had a client on the phone just yesterday and we were talking about their plans to start off with two shows initially and then they're building a network and we kinda outlined some steps for them and how they would grow and advance and maybe add some additional tools to their plan as they have, as they add more shows and some of the functions, uh, that were gonna be available to them. So that scalability, allowing a podcaster to start relatively small and then ramp up and have all those advanced features that one may need if they have a network like, like, uh, digital audio insertion and or programmatic advertising or those types of features that, uh, more, more advanced shows are going to need. So that's one of the reasons folks will consider migration as well.

Speaker 0 00:11:41 Yeah. And then there are some exclusive content platforms. And again, we would kind of discourage that because Pod, one of the great things about podcasting is that syndication, it goes far and wide and you can be everywhere or dang near everywhere, and some podcasters might wanna move to a platform that has exclusivity, but you'll notice that, uh, Spotify used to have a lot of exclusive shows and some pretty big ones, and that's no longer the case. They're, they're now making a lot of their formerly exclusive shows more widely distributed to, uh, you know, they have an RSS feed so it can go anywhere. And I don't know if exclusive is worth it. Now someone writes you a $200 million check, by all means , but you know, for the most part, us normal podcasters aren't gonna get that. So being exclusive to one platform really limits your, your reach. So be careful with that one.

Speaker 3 00:12:47 And I think if we go back and think about the main thesis here is migration does not have to be scary. And no, it can be scary if you do it on your own without really any consultation of, of the host that you're, you're moving to. That's really, really important that you work with the support team that of the host that you're moving to, to make sure the migration goes, goes smoothly. And switching Podcasts Coast really is a strategic move. You may leverage new opportunities, overcome limitations, and you could honestly, and we've seen this many times, achieve greater success. And again, podcast are way that benefits against a potential disruption in work involved. Again, I don't believe the work involved today is as significant as it used to be because the tools have just gotten really, really good. But making the switch, make sure it aligns with your goal and, and your audience needs.

Speaker 3 00:13:46 Now something that we've got going on here is, is really a fantastic deal. Blueberry's offering an opportunity for those that want to switch to Blueberry for six months free of hosting. Now you have to do a consultation with our team to, to get that specific code, to be able to enable that six months free of hosting. You can send an email to us, which you'll find that information at the end of the show today. But again, the free tech support that goes along with that. But again, this, this six months free by deciding to switch to blueberry is an offer that we've never made before. And I think one that will allow you to give the, the, the platform a complete test drive if you're currently not a blueberry hosting customer. And once you get in there and running, you get that those first six months of, of hosting is on us.

Speaker 0 00:14:39 Yep. And, uh, that, that goes for a while yet, I don't know how long we're gonna be running that deal. So get, uh, get on our calendar there. You can email, email myself or just support@blueberry.com. That would actually work. And uh, one of us will, uh, set up a time with you and we'll discuss your needs and maybe get you moved over.

Speaker 1 00:15:02 Happy migrating. Thanks for joining us. Let's meet up next week. And in the meantime, for more information to subscribe, share or follow, check out the show notes@podcastinsider.com to check out our latest suite of services and help Blueberry can help you leverage your podcast. Visit blueberry.com. That's blueberry without the ease.