Convictional’s Nikhil Venkatesa: Don’t Judge B2B Podcasts by Listener Numbers

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Marketing teams often prioritize traffic above all else. They assume that adding more visitors to their acquisition funnel will lead to more MQLs, deals, and revenue. It makes sense in theory, but obsessing over traffic can mislead marketers. A bigger audience isn’t always better, especially if you compromise quality to achieve volume.

“If your podcast has 100 listeners and they’re all your perfect listeners, that’s all that matters,” says Nikhil Venkatesa, content marketing lead at Convictional. “Marketing isn’t all about numbers. It’s about reaching the right people.”

I caught up with Nikhil to discuss how he prioritized audience quality at Convictional and how that theory influences the sort of content he produces.

You launched a podcast in your first 60 days at Convictional. Why’d you prioritize that channel so early?

In my interviews, I said, “I love podcasting. The retail space could use a podcast because the quality of content in B2B SaaS for retail is extremely underdeveloped. It's extremely surface-level. We need to get into these conversations with our target audience.”

They told me that they were well aware of that, which is why they’d recorded a batch of podcast episodes! They’d recorded the first season of interviews before I joined. But they had hesitations over release strategy, goals, and cadence. They didn’t know how difficult it would be to produce the next 30 or 50 episodes without burning out their team.

Once I came on board, I knew we had recorded the interviews and I knew they were good. We started publishing Legends of Retail in May 2022.

What was the response like?

It was exactly what I thought it would be. We connected with our core audience of C-suite retail execs. We got enough interest to record a new batch of interviews for season two, which is coming out in late October.

We connected with our core audience of C-suite retail execs.

We've been getting amazing emails from our community saying, “This is exactly what I wanted from this kind of content.” They like that it’s extremely in-depth, informative, and thoughtful.

We're getting genuine appreciation. That’s what happens when you're not too concerned about downloads, subscribers, and listenership. It’s because we’re focused on creating the best version of our podcast.

You landed some amazing guests in season one, including David Cheesewright, former CEO of Walmart. How did you recruit them to a brand new project?

It's a testament to our founders, Chris and Roger, and the connections they've built over the years. The first batch of guests came from their existing network, people that they've built deep authentic relationships with.

We were looking for the highest quality guests. We wanted people who could hold an interesting and authentic conversation. My job was finding the sparks in the conversation and fanning them into flames. I had to turn the conversations into sustainable content assets. I had to do so in a very scrappy way, especially for season one.

Five or 10 years ago, the podcast space was much less competitive. But now you’re going up against media giants like the BBC and HBO as well as dedicated podcast networks. How do you cut through the noise?

It's a good question, but I think the better question is, “What is the aim or goal of your podcast?” In our case, our goal isn’t adding listeners, subscribers, or followers. Assuming your podcast goal is adding listeners is something that a lot of B2B marketers get wrong with podcasting.

That’s a great call-out! So how do you reach the right listeners?

We distribute each episode on our own organic social channels. We do a lot of work repurposing episodes into zero-click content. We're not just putting a link to the episode. We are creating high-quality branded clips, the best snippets of the conversation.

We do a lot of work repurposing episodes into zero-click content.

We’re also marketing it in our newsletter, reaching existing customers and our non-social owned audience. Those are our two biggest distribution points. We’ve used zero paid marketing and we're still seeing really good results.

You’ve said it’s important to define the purpose of your podcast, but you haven’t actually told me your goal. So what are you hoping to achieve from Legends of Retail?

The purpose of our podcast is to create conversations in retail that aren't happening. If you look at eCommerce podcasts, one of the best things that Shopify did was have authentic, deep, thoughtful, and insightful conversations with their target audience.

We realized that we want to have those authentic conversations with C-suite retail executives.

We want to talk about the biggest leadership lessons they’ve learned. Or how they’ve digitally transformed their business. Or how COVID-19 impacted their operations. These are conversations that simply aren't happening in retail content. The reason why they aren't happening is that companies haven't been smart about creating this thoughtful content.

The purpose of our podcast is to create conversations in retail that aren't happening.

A lot of retail podcasts are third-party podcasts. They look at retail from the perspective of an outside party—sort of like journalists reporting on business performance. There hasn't been an “inside baseball” podcast featuring C-suite retail executives. That's what we’re creating with our podcast.

And if you don’t care about listener numbers or subscribers, how are you measuring success?

We’ve seen the show build stronger connections with new and existing customers. It’s helping our sales team engage in new conversations. We have a strong connection to the sales side of the go-to-market strategy. It's been very interesting to see how the podcast and sales motions have worked in tandem over time.

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