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What We’re Listening To: Best Marketing Podcasts Roundup

Marketing Podcasts

If you want to stay on top of the marketing game, you’ve got to have cutting-edge ideas. When inspiration is hard to find, we hit the books — or, in this case, podcasts.

Here’s a glimpse of marketing podcasts the D Custom team is tuning in to this month.

Related: Our digitally obsessed team is constantly coming across mass-email worthy articles. Like this one.

Pedro Armstrong, manager of custom production

The “Stuff You Should Know” podcast covers a wide variety of topics from anthropology and art to space and war. They even have podcasts about marketing and advertising, a few of which are odd, but nonetheless entertaining. The ones that come to mind are the “Should Advertising to Kids Be Banned?” and “How Audience Testing Works” episodes. But what I like the most about “Stuff You Should Know” is that it always finds an intriguing angle with topics that can sometimes lean to the boring side. Case in point: there’s this fascinating episode on the creation of Tupperware and how it was marketed back in the day. Much more interesting than one would expect.

Paige Bannecker, former account supervisor

Marketing isn’t just about the data. Sometimes it’s about the people. How I Built This” is a podcast that interviews entrepreneurs and innovators who share the journey of how they got where they are today. It’s good because you get to hear not only the successes, but also the failures they experienced and how they used those to better their business. The “Kendra Scott” episode is one of my favorites. I’m a fan of her jewelry, but after hearing her story, it made me respect her so much more. After listening to her podcast, you find out why philanthropy is so important to her (her stepfather passed away from cancer). Kendra’s vision for helping to fill a need in the jewelry industry is really neat too, and her approach to how she designed her stores is fascinating. I like “How I Built This” because you get to see how ordinary people do extraordinary things. And understanding what goes into a brand behind the scenes can help create better marketing.

Annie Wiles, managing editor

We try to keep up-to-date with what’s going on in the digital landscape. But what about the esoteric corners of the online universe that hold the secrets of such cultural phenomenons as “Pizza Rat”? The virtual explorers at “Reply All” dig into technology-related eccentricities on their podcasts every week and bring to light trends you’ve probably heard of that confuse them, like Harambe (#NeverForget), and things they’ve discovered that you’ve probably never heard of. “Reply All” is the world of Zardulu, the mastermind behind this viral video (or is she?); a sect of people who call themselves tulpamancers and create imaginary friends who can converse with them and take over their bodies at will (research at your own risk); and people with medical illnesses so rare they think they might be under a curse. Do you need to know any of these things? No. Not unless you care about the strange, beautiful stories of being alive in the age of technology. In marketing, we try to understand people and what makes them tick — and what better way to get to know people than to catch them at their weirdest?

Melissa Chowning, former director of digital media strategy

I’m a big fan of “Digiday.” This podcast is awesome because it’s about the length of a car ride (20 minutes or so) and features interviews with the big dogs at major media companies, agencies, etc. Want to hear about what is on the mind of the CEO of Vox Media? That’s the kind of thing they dig into.

Izzie Ramirez, summer 2017 editorial intern

I believe sound editorial decisions drive great content. Hearing how other newsrooms and companies decide which stories to tell helps me hone that skill. The “Vice Magazine Podcast” does a great job of giving us a director’s cut of what goes into the magazine. Each episode, we get to hear how the cover is made, how the cover story was reported, and — my favorite — a discussion of a memento a journalist picked up while covering a story. The June episode is a great place to start.

Brian Kendall, former managing editor

“Song Exploder” features some of the greatest songwriters talking about, well, songwriting. In one episode, Jeff Tweedy of Wilco chats at length about entering the studio with a tiny piece of a song — a brief, five-second melody with gibberish in place of lyrics. Sure, creating marketing content and songwriting might sound vastly different, but they’re both creative processes, and that’s something that transcends mediums. What begins as a small idea can turn into a magnum opus once you add the rhythm, melody, backbeat, and layers of instrumentation. It’s the same for marketing, really — just sub in great content, design, SEO, and smart digital strategy, and you’ve got music.

Have a must-listen marketing podcast our team missed? Let us know. And be sure to stay in touch via FacebookLinkedInTwitter, and Instagram.