Social Media
Campaign
The
Conspirinormal podcast is a B2C business that produces weekly audio podcasts. Conspirinormal is available on a variety of
platforms like Patreon, Podomatic, Spotify, YouTube, and Conspirinormal.com.
Conspirinormal has a Facebook page, an Instagram account, a LinkedIn, and a
Twitter account. Conspirinormal has 687 likes and 732 followers on Facebook,
226 followers on Instagram, and 333 followers on Twitter. The podcast promoted the Strange Realities
Conference with additional posts and videos, but traditionally the podcasters
direct the promotional efforts to announce the weekly podcast. Conspirinormal
has a small, loyal fan base, but a social media marketing campaign will
increase brand awareness, podcast listeners, followers, funding, and conference
ticket sales.
Target
Audience: Spoken Word Listeners
Nashville
Public Radio (NPR) partnered with Edison Research to conduct a study regarding
the behaviors and motivations of the 73 percent of monthly listeners of spoken
audio. The popularity of spoken word has increased substantially within the
past five years due to the societal trend of multitasking and diminishing free
time. Spoken audio listeners choose an audio format to stay current, for
entertainment, to learn new things, to relax, to feel inspired, to escape, and
for companionship (Edisonsurveys, 2019).Forty-one percent listen , but the
majority at 59 percent, prefer digital platforms. Over half of those listeners
are male. Forty-three percent of 18 to 34-year old and 23 percent are age 55 or
older prefer digital platforms (Edisonsurvey, 2019). Thirty-two percent of
Americans listen to spoken audio on Pandora, while 18 percent tune-in on
Spotify (Edison Research, 2018).
Target
Segment: Podcast Listeners
Podcast
listeners have doubled from 2014 to 2019 (Edisonsurvey, 2019). As of
2018, podcast monthly listeners rose to 64 percent of Americans (Edison
Research, 2018). Ninety million people
listen monthly, while 62 million listen weekly (Marvin, 2019). Podcast
listeners fall between 18 to 54 years of age and are mostly males at 56
percent. Podcast listeners subscribe to an average of six podcasts. Sixty-three
percent of podcast listeners are employed full-time (Edison Research,
2017). Growth is notable among
younger demographics and mobile phone users (Edisonsurvey, 2019). The 25 to 54
age group increased 29 percent since 2016 (Edison Research, 2017).Sixty-nine percent of these listeners do so
from their phones (Edison Research, 2017). In fact, 11% of all mobile
usage was spoken word audio (Edisonsurvey,
2019). Podcast listeners are educated
as 40 percent of podcast listeners have a bachelor’s degree. Podcast listeners
have an average annual household income of $75,000 (Edison Research, 2017).
According
to Podcast Insights, Apple alone has over 550,000 podcasts available through
its app (Crawl, 2018). Online platforms and applications have made changes to
accommodate for an increased market and consumer demands. Recently Google
updated its search to locate podcasts and play the results on the search page
(Southern, 2019). Pandora started incorporating podcasting into its
personalization and recommendation algorithms as of December 2018 (Inside
Radio, December 2019). In 2019, Spotify began beta-testing similar changes to
make podcasts more easily searchable (Inside Radio, May 2019). Industry leaders are adapting to meet consumer
needs. With 120 million monthly listeners NPR is a leader in the podcast and
spoken audio markets. The market is saturated, and consumers do not passively
consume content, so NPR’s primary strategy is to become a need to consumers and
encourage consumers to return daily with brief, ten minute daily podcasts. The
interest in podcasts continues to grow because there is a variety of topics
available on demand and easily
accessible to fit consumers’ schedules and interests (Edisonsurvey,
2019). There are several niche segments
within podcast listeners. Conspirinormal appeals to knowledge-seekers and
spectators who make up 68 percent on the online digital community in the U.S.
Knowledge-seekers like to watch videos and read blogs online (Roberts
& Zahay, 2013).
Value Proposition
Many
people are fascinated by paranormal and other unexplained phenomena. Cities,
restaurants, and other tourism-related businesses capitalize on this macabre interest
with haunted tours, paranormal investigations, and haunted rentals, while
others offer their supernatural investigation services free-of-charge (Locker,
2014). Former governor Jesse Ventura and radio show host Alex Jones are two well-known
figures in the industry of conspiracies, and there are many others that
monetize on extreme paranoia and provocation (McFarlane, 2012). With so much
propaganda surrounding these industries, where do consumers turn who are
searching for discussion rather than definite answers to unexplained mysteries?
The
Conspirinormal podcast is, “Dedicated to finding the truth in all things
paranormal and conspiracy theory related” (Conspirinormal, n.d.). Started in
April 2012, the podcast episodes range from various unconventional topics like
UFOs, fairy folklore, and Big Foot. Why are people interested in conspiracy
theories or paranormal activity? Where others have found success by claiming to
have definite answers and purposefully heightening a listener’s emotions, the
Conspirinormal podcast hosts maintain a neutral and unbiased view while
interviewing guests. Additionally, occasional humor, in depth knowledge of the
topics, and neutrality are a few factors that set Conspirinormal apart from
market competition. As one Facebook commenter states, “What really makes them
standout is that they ask many questions. And they've done their homework as
well. Smart, punchy, provocative. Never a bad episode” (Conspirinormal Podcast,
2019). Conspirinormal podcast does not claim to have the answers, they search
for answers. This non-extremist value is a key, promotable factor.
Campaign Objectives
One
social media campaign goal is to increase consumer contributions to $400 a
month. Listeners support the Conspirinormal Podcast through Patreon site.
Patreon is a crowd-funding site that allows supporters to donate a one-time
payment or agree to donate one, five, ten, twenty, or one-hundred dollars
monthly with reward options for each level. Conspirinormal’s baseline goal that
allows the podcast to remain in operation is $200 per month. Currently 43
patrons contribute $192 monthly (Conspirinormal, n.d.). Another campaign goal
is to raise brand awareness and increase followers. Each hour and a half long,
weekly-released podcast video has around 200 to 400 views per month. Another
goal is to increase attendance at the next conference. Conspirinormal hosted
the Strange Realities conference in Nashville, Tennessee on October 19, 2019.
While this was the first conference held, and it was a success in many ways,
there were many empty seats. About half of the tickets were sold in advance at
an affordable price. The event began early in the morning with several speakers
and ended with a few musicians. Next year the hosts hope to fill all the seats.
Social Media Marketing Activities
Word-of-mouth remains one of the
most effective methods of building a podcast audience (Crawl, 2018). However,
with the popularity of the internet and social media, businesses should not
dismiss these valuable tools. Consumers access the internet over 20 hours every
week (Roberts & Zahay, 2013). This is valuable time that businesses can
interact with consumers, strengthen positive relationships, and form a brand
community. Over 60 percent of consumers within a brand community have more
positive feelings about the brand and are more likely to purchase the brand’s product. One survey by Syncapse discovered that loyal consumers on
Facebook spend over 70 dollars more on a brand (Roberts & Zahay, 2013).
Since social media is platform for two-directional communication, businesses
can strengthen relationships by allowing consumer feedback in the form of
comments or reviews on the business page.
Blogging & Community Building
Conspirinormal
can use Patreon and blog posts to create a stronger community. Creating a strong
sense of community will increase supporters because consumers that feel safe to
be vulnerable and participate in conversations, they in turn become more
excited about the content created (Derrick, 2019). Seventy-two percent of
consumers who joined a group felt more positively about the brand (Roberts & Zahay, 2013). High
quality content and conversation will strengthen the brand community. The focus
should be good storytelling in whatever marketing format (Crawl, 2018).
Content marketing provides information to
consumers while potentially benefiting a brand’s position within an industry
(West, 2018). High quality content can produce 300 percent more leads (Roberts
& Zahay, 2013). Blogging is an effective channel to engage and inform
consumers. Conspirinormal can engage the target audience with blogs and collaborate
with consumers by accepting and using customer-submitted ideas and submissions.
Additionally, the podcast can incentivize listeners to donate to Patreon by offering free entry into the conference with
a set monthly or annual donation.
Video
Online videos are
popular engagement opportunities. On
average, consumers watch 30 minutes of video content weekly.
In one 2011 Nielsen
survey, video advertisements made up twelve percent of video content consumers
viewed. According to CMIT Solutions, websites that have videos see an increase
sales an average of 13 percent (Roberts & Zahay, 2013). Companies can
release product demonstrations, testimonials, animated, or creative videos with
the intention for sharing as viral videos create positive associations
and brand awareness (Roberts & Zahay, 2013). High quality video content does
not have to be promotional to increase awareness. The podcast has a solid
mission statement, but viewers need to know what they can expect when listening.
An introductory video on all video platforms can explain benefits and podcast
goals. To pique interest around the weekly
podcast drop, Conspirinormal can
release brief video clips released creating excitement for the speaker or topic
that week. To optimize a video file for searching and sharing, the creator can
add a video transcript or relevant keywords in the text fields. A business can use
and monitor user ratings and comments on videos to promote further engagement ((Roberts &
Zahay, 2013).
Search Engine Optimization
Consumers
are an active part of the marketing process. Due to the number of products and
the amount of information available, consumers actively seek what they need on
the internet (Court,
Elzinga, Mulder, & Vetvik, 2009). When consumers go
online to perform research on a product or brand, the information needs to be
available for consumers to pull at that time, which is why companies must invest
in online marketing content (Roberts & Zahay, 2013). Companies can invest in pay-per-click (PPC) ads, but over sixty percent of visitors locate sites through organic sites (Roberts & Zahay, 2013). has a limited marketing budget, but there are many ways to use organic reach
make some changes to the website’s code to enhance organic search results and
page rankings. he first step is to register a business with every search engine site. Google is the most popular, followed by Yahoo, Microsoft, Ask and lastly, AOL (Roberts & Zahay, 2013). The next step is to locate keywords to insert throughout the website to increase the website’s searchability. Page ranking describes a
website’s priority on a search site. Most page ranking algorithms are
proprietary, although some common rank determinants are metatag data, keywords locate
on and frequency, content quality, and number of linked sites (Roberts &
Zahay, 2013). By inserting search keywords repeatedly throughout the website, will improve page ranking.
Keywords
are the terms and phrases that consumers enter into search engines to get
results. Conspirinormal can use search engines and a keyword search tool to
locate popular terms. A traffic estimator tool will help determine how many
clicks the keywords receive (Roberts & Zahay, 2013). A business may need to
revise the website and add the strongest keywords in the site’s title tag, META
tag, URL, the body content, and linked site data. The more the keywords are
added to the page, the greater chance the website will pull up in the results
(Roberts & Zahay, 2013). In a Google
search, the term “Conspirinormal podcast” pulls up the podcast immediately.
Using the term “paranormal podcast” turns up nothing on the first 3 pages.
“Conspiracy and paranormal” the podcast is the twelfth result on the second
page. According to Amazon stats, 73 percent of organic search referrals come
from the keywords “strange familiars podcast” and 26 percent from “conspiracy
theory podcast.” There are 13 back links that link into Conspirinormal.com
(Alexa, n.d.).
Currently
the Conspirinormal podcast is not voice-recognizable by Siri, Google Home, or
Alexa. American households own one or more smart speaker devices (Edison
Research, 2018). Speaker devices search engines generate over one billion
searches per month according to 2018 data (Adams, 2018). Twenty million American households own one or
more smart speaker devices (Edison Research, 2018). One way for Conspirinormal
to adapt to smart speakers is to build an Alexa Skill (Adams, 2018). Amazon has
a thorough walk-through that allows businesses to design a desired skill that
allows voice-activated podcast plays from a smart speaker device or provide a
daily message for listeners. The primary focus when building a voice-response
skill is to make it as natural an interaction as possible so consumers can
easily interact with the device (Adams, 2018). Even if a business does not want
to create a skill specific to their business, it is still important to register
the business with Yelp, Google Maps, or voice-activated websites, so the
business site will show in search results.
Campaign
Metrics
This
social media marketing campaign will run approximately a year through next
October when the next conference is scheduled. To measure the success of the
campaign, one can look at several metrics. Primarily, if the correct audience
is reached then video viewership will increase and Conspirinormal will gain
more followers on all platforms. Secondly, Patreon donations will increase
which is easily traceable since the site tracks this information. As next year’s conference draws closer,
ticket pre-sales and offers will help increase advanced ticket sales. Lastly,
if followers, supporters, and podcast viewership increase, and the
Conspirinormal hosts consistently engage followers with high quality content,
and consumers continue to have a positive experience, then the ticket sells for
the next Conspirinormal conference will increase. This social media marketing
campaign will run approximately a year through next October when the next
conference is scheduled.
References
Adams,
B. (218, March 15). 3 ways to get your business to appear in Alexa and Google
Home searches. Inc.. Retrieved from https://www.inc.com/bryan-adams/3-ways-to-get-your-business-to-appear-in-alexa-google-home-searches.html
Alexa.
(n.d.). Competitive analysis, marketing mix, and traffic. Retrieved on December
9, 2019 from https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/conspirinormal.com
Conspirinormal.
(n.d.). Adam Sayne is creating Conspirinormal podcast. Retrieved on November
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Conspirinormal
Podcast (2019). Conspirinormal Facebook business community page. Retrieved from
https://www.facebook.com/Conspirinormal-445112635502740/
Court,
D., Elzinga, D., Mulder, S., & Vetvik, O.J. (2009, June). The consumer
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