Content Quality, Relevance And Super Fans Led Us To The Top 1%, Says Yaagneshwaran Ganesh, The Host Of The ABM Conversations Podcast

The award-winning Indian marketer and the host of The ABM Conversations Podcast, Yaagneshwaran Ganesh (Yaag), says that starting a B2B marketing podcast is helpful only for those marketers who are ready to play the long term game.

Nowadays, with easy access to technology, creating, publishing and distributing content isn't a problem, but ensuring that the content you create is relevant to your listeners is the actual challenge. And that also means you have a high bar for your content quality.

Yaag, the Director of Marketing at Avoma, started The ABM Conversations Podcast in December 2019, and he didn't have any guest speakers for the first 13 episodes. And now his podcast is among the top 1% in the world, featuring some of the hegemons in the world of marketing, including Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, Rory Sutherland, Rand Fishkin and more.

Asking about it, Yaag says,"We started our podcast just before the pandemic broke out, and things went crazy around the world. And at the time, I didn't know anything about podcasting, nor did I know the difference between a dynamic mic and a condenser mic. The one thing we knew for sure at that point was – if someone spent 45 mins or an hour listening to our episodes, we wanted to give them the value for the full 45 mins. Being an avid podcast listener, I used to get frustrated whenever I heard a podcast that was more small-talk and less meaty-actionable content."

Talking about his meaty podcast interviews with their amazing lineup of guests, he says, "We never approached these brilliant people with the intent of driving more downloads. Our focus has always been on creating the best repository of B2B marketing content, and we hope to get there in the next five years. Therefore we never approached an episode with a guest in mind. It was always about the topic we want to go deep on. And we approached or requested guests whom we thought would be the best to deep-dive on a given topic."

He continued,"I'm very thankful to our listeners who hold our feet to the fire. They listen to the episodes and write to me about what they agree or disagree with the things discussed in each episode. Our listeners are so passionate that they wear our brand on their sleeves."

To ensure he respects their listener's time and also learn as much possible from guests, here's what Yaag does:

• He conducts in-depth research for each episode. He feels that the difference between doing a quick 20 minutes research versus spending two to three (or more!) hours is immeasurable.
• Having identified that his listeners are B2B SaaS marketers and sales professionals with 5+ years of experience, he focuses on making every episode actionable and relevant to the audience.
• Realizing that their listeners usually are listening to the show as a secondary activity (while jogging or in the gym), he's focused on keeping the podcast is audio-only

Yaag recommends that all podcasters read up on any case studies, listen to previous podcast episodes of their guests. He also suggests that scheduling a 15 to 20-minute discovery call with guests helps get a sense of their personality. 

That way, you know what conversation style works with them and what doesn't. And more importantly, with that kind of homework, you won't be asking the same questions or the same topics they have discussed across other podcasts.

Yaag is also a big fan of Naval Ravikant, the CEO of AngelList. He truly lives by the motto that Naval recommends 'Play long-term games with long-term people.' He podcasts to enjoy the process, build relationships, learn from his guests and genuinely provide value to B2B marketers and salespeople in the Saas industry.

The ABM Conversations Podcast rightfully ranks in the top 1% of podcasts globally.