🎲 Why you need quizzes in your podcast marketing strategy 🎲
Plus, resources for Adopt-a-Listener
A mix of curiosity with challenge is an excellent tool to garner attention in marketing land. The team behind the Famous & Gravy podcast seem to have clued in on this with Dead or Alive: a quiz. Today, we hear from them on how this came to be and how it’s going. (The 52 weeks of podcast growth section is further down today, folks).
The concept of the quiz is simple yet genius. It throws seven celebrities at you and you have to guess if they are either dead or alive. For the noobs (like me) it will even offer you a clue as to who they are. Like below.
At the end of the game, it offers you a link to listen to the podcast. Here’s the final page (without my score because I am ashamed of it).
Why is this genius? Well, because the Famous & Gravy podcast is all about the quality of life of famous dead celebrities. Hence, the concept of the quiz. Obviously, I love it. Obviously, I HAD to interview the creators of the show – Michael Osborne and Amit Kapoor. Without further ado.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
How did the idea for this quiz come about?
The idea for the quiz game actually came about BEFORE the idea for the podcast; the quiz became the inspiration for the show (there’s an episode about it). Years ago, when we were both living in San Francisco - this was the height of Facebook – we began discussing the outpouring of ―RIP _(celebrity)_‖ posts that seemed to fill our feeds. The outpouring felt disingenuous, like those who posted didn’t care all that much about certain deaths, and that they may not even remember later that the person had even died. That’s when the idea for the game struck – let’s test people’s knowledge on who is dead or alive, specifically celebrities who have faded from the spotlight. As we started to play it, verbally and via text at first, we quickly realized how much FUN our friends had playing, in addition to it being a funny (if not morbidly funny) concept.
It was the observation of disingenuous grief that first led to the game idea, but then became the AHA moment for the podcast idea.
After the podcast launched, and we started to see listener growth, we then really wanted to develop the quiz game that inspired it - that’s when Dead or Alive was officially born.
How has the response been, so far?
Excellent, qualitatively. The number of people playing the game grows monthly (we launched in August 2022) and we see variable spikes often, which indicates that it’s being shared, which is the goal. Most who play it get hooked (on average, people play 3 rounds per session). It has served as a great tool for us to introduce our show in a soft way. For example, often at parties or bars, we tell people to play it and once they do, they are often curious about the show. Our current listeners also tell us how much they enjoy playing, and it’s become one of those Wordle-like time-fillers that’s good for waiting in line, commercial breaks, or riding in Ubers. Several people have told us they like playing it with others, as a quick bar game or just for something to do with friends (it’s remarkable how often people are searching for something to do together). We haven’t hit hockey-stick viral growth, but that’s our hope, and we know you can’t engineer that - so we’re patient, and the nice thing is we can be because the game is evergreen.
Where does the quiz feature in your overall marketing strategy?
It is a tool for both acquisition and engagement. The Dead or Alive app has Famous & Gravy branding and there are also two entry points from the app to our website and podlink. Simply, the game is fun to play and puts our show’s name into a new space, so even if a user doesn’t click in session (frankly, it doesn’t make a lot of sense that many would), the experience raises the brand awareness of the Famous & Gravy podcast. It’s also a way to gently bring non-podcast listeners into the category. When players see a celebrity name that makes them think, they’ve given themselves a subtle pitch for why they’d be interested in the show. One of our favorite things we’ve seen is ―leapfrog listener acquisition. There are of course people we know that, no matter how many attempts, we cannot yet shake them to listen to podcasts, but because those people either like us or some other work we’ve done, they happily play the game and advocate it to others, including to many who are podcast listeners – and then, the non-podcast listener friend pitches the show to the podcast listener who they just shared the game with. This actually happens.
Secondly, it’s listener engagement. In between show releases, it’s a way for our regulars to stay engaged with the show. It deepens their relationship with the show and keeps it top of mind. Some of them email us and suggest names to add to the app (though 99% of the time the names they suggest are already on there).
Any wins and key learnings you'd like to share with our readers?
Most importantly is that this was a lower-cost undertaking than we would have thought, comparable to what we’d try on a single ad spend. We asked our networks to help us find developers, and ultimately found computer science students who were willing (and excited) to develop it for a pretty low cost. The key learning we’d share therefore is that most podcasts have a theme that can be gamified (even if not the central theme) and you can make that gamification a reality that is fun, engaging, and effective without spending much. We’ve likely already realized the return on our spend, and since the game is evergreen and evolves (new names are added, and entries change when there are deaths), it will continue to pay dividends. We wish we had the secret to share on spreading virality, but we haven’t gotten there yet, so we hope to return and tell that story one day.
Thanks, Michael and Amit! My sucky score at the game combined with my competitiveness has converted me to a listener already.
Listen to Famous & Gravy or play Dead or Alive.
Speaking of converting non-listeners…
🎧 Adopt-a-Listener Corner
As you may already know, Tink has declared April (and likely all of eternity) the Adopt-a-Listener month. Every week we’re dropping resources like playlists and blogs on your journey to adopting a listener. This week, the team published two stellar blogs:
Psst…If you’ve been following Shreya’s Audio Affairs, you probably know that I love niche podcast playlists. I’m working on some fun ones for AAL. Stay tuned!
🦄 52 Weeks of Podcast Growth
Show your pitch email to a friend or share it with the podcasting Discord community. (Or even us if you’re comfortable with that).
You’ve done the deed of writing the pitch. Before we throw you to the sharks and have you send them to a bunch of strangers, why not try sharing them with some friends or mentors?
To sum it up, the last 5 weeks’ tips are:
Record a trailer of your show.
Get a friend or a fellow podcaster to hear your promo swap.
Find the contacts of 10 podcasts similar to yours.
Draft a pitch email for promo swaps.
Show your pitch to a friend or share it with your podcasting community.
From the desk of Tink
Black People Love Paramore is humorous podcast about the seemingly random, underrepresented interests of different niches of Black people. Episode topics include Paramore, anime, and astrology, Tony Hawk, UNO and more. Host Sequoia Holmes hopes to help Black people feel *scene*... get it? New episodes every other Thursday.
✨ More Magic
Pushkin Industries launched the Best Audio Storytelling Audiobook, an anthology of the best non-fiction audio moments curated by Pushkin. Our readers can avail a 15% discount with the code BASPTN15.
On Podstack, Devin shared a deliciously devilish stack of podcasts (spoiler alert: there’s a lot of sexiness, horniness, and food).
Last week, we shared 5 things indie podcasts want to know when pitching sponsors.
Sounds Like Impact is a new newsletter which highlights audio in the social impact territory. The author also leaves us with action items at the end of each volume.
Thank you for the shoutout of Sounds Like Impact!
Also the quiz idea is such a good one!