Alright. We're chatting with Robert Tuchman. He's the cofounder of Amaze Media Labs. It's a company that does a lot of work in podcasting, production, expansion, growth, a lot of branded podcasting work. He is also the host of How Success Happens podcast with Entrepreneur Magazine. And more importantly, his Amaze Media Labs has just unveiled a brand new product that I think lots of Podcasting gonna find very intriguing that is
called Trailergram. You could check it out at trailergram.co, and we're gonna learn more about it right now. Robert, thanks for joining us. Mathew, thanks so much for, for having me on. It's definitely an honor. Oh, well, it is a great pleasure to meet someone who's coming out with something so innovative and interesting for the podcasting space. So before we dive into Trailergram, just quickly tell us a little bit about Amaze Media Labs and what you guys do in the podcasting space. Yeah.
Thanks for asking. You know, we really or myself and my partners, we started this business. As you mentioned, I host a show called How Success Happens for Entrepreneur, and I'd have a lot of, interviews with people who own big companies or started companies, you know, like Warby Parker or Lulu Lemon. And I'd always wonder why they didn't have their own podcast at the time and went to a couple of my partners, and we started the business to create podcasts for companies.
And, you know, we found, the right help production people, and we really just took off. This was, during, you know, right at COVID hitting. And, it was a a good time for people, looking who had money to spend at least on events which weren't happening, and instead, they could get their message
across, through podcasting. So we we started the business, and then the one issue he fell into or found out about very early on was that discoverability, even if you're doing a podcast for a Ford Motor Company or a Pfizer, whoever it might be, whether it's, any you know, celebrity wise, you know, it's very difficult to
find and then really difficult to build audience. And that kinda put us and set us on a journey, to really feel like we needed to create a tech if we wanted to stay in business, longer, and if we wanted to do second seasons and 3rd seasons, we had to figure out a way to have podcast growth.
Well and so you've come up with this platform, Trailergram. And, you know, various business groups or Facebook groups or, you know, the other thing big thing is always, you know, oh, advertise on other podcasts that are related to your space. The one thing that I've always found tricky, and I think you guys address really nicely is how to advertise a podcast, right, like via Google
Ads, let's say, or even Facebook ads. A lot of those a lot of those platforms just don't feel very successful because you're missing the most important component, which is the ability to listen. But you guys have kinda solved that puzzle. So tell us what Trailergram does and how podcasters would be using it. Well, Mat you're exactly right. I mean, that
that is the issue. And when we got into this, and I learned very quickly having my own podcast even when I had these celebrity guests on who would post, you know, on Instagram or wherever, no one was clicking off, you know, or gone putting it on LinkedIn and and listening to the podcast. I had clients that were putting it on billboards in Times
Square, literally, their their podcast. And we realized that, very quickly that or as I said, that, there are very few things that you could do to to grow your audience if you're not using Technology. And even paid media, just doing Google AdWords or so, really, what the the the concept of Trailergram came out of, or from, my partner, Brett Sklar, and our engineers. Myself and Brett had sold our last business to creative artist agencies, so we
were there. They were like a a big talent firm, and they're very big in, representation and creating films and movies. And we saw how movie trailers really moved the movie business, right, and and got people excited about going to see a movie. And Brett's idea was, what about trailers, basically for podcast? Now, obviously, what we came up with was, very Podcasting. And and with the with the team of engineers, what really we're doing or or what we do is that we take a trailer. Right?
And we basically have our own DSP. And the DSP is global. I we you know, it's pretty much anywhere but China, but we target, you know, specific areas. Like, it could be North America or the United States. And all of the, partners or publishers in our DSP or or brand friendly, you know, websites like ESPN or WebMD. And how it works is what we do is let's say you're reading an article, for instance, on the New York Jets, and I only bring that up because I'm a Jets fan and, I'm
miserable. And can see my jets thing behind me. I didn't even that's it. Oh, no. Oh, jeez. We can, we might ruin this whole podcast. Well, we'll commiserate about that. I'll I'll find about that. So so let's say you're reading an article, which I read plenty of, unfortunately, on on the Jets, what on the ESPN. And then all of a sudden, because of our it's our DSP, and we can place this podcast trailer, next to contextually relevant content. Let's
say the podcast is about the New York Jets. And then we can even target specifically through machine learning and AI, you know, the the target demographic of of our of of the listener. And if it finds, you know, you're a Jets fan, you're an NFL fan, you're you're obviously reading an article about them, the trailer pops up next to the article. And then the unique thing about this is that what we do is,
basically, there's an opportunity. And usually, the trailers are, you know, 30 to to 60 seconds long. It it gets you excited just like, you know, you go to a movie and you see a film trailer, and you're like, I wanna go see that movie. Right? They don't show you the whole movie. And and, basically, what happens is what's very unique about this product is that it gives you an option to subscribe to basically receive push notifications about the podcast.
So the nice thing is it's a most mostly mobile, environment. And if you are, you know, you might have a a lunch to go to in 10 minutes, and you just read that article or dinner, or meeting a friend, you what you do is you subscribe. Right then and there, you can subscribe to get push notifications. So the next day, you receive a push notification on your phone, whether, you know, it's, iOS or Android, and, basically, it shows you, the podcast where you can just click
and go listen to it. At the same time now, you don't have to subscribe to receive push notifications. You can basically directly, when you're reading this article, go right to our it's basically our web player and pops up the web player with the podcast, the current episode, and also past episodes, and you can start listening to the podcast right then and
there. And I think the key and why it's been so successful, first off, is the number one thing I think in terms of success is that we've been able to get price point down to an average of what people are paying between, let's say, a nickel 15¢ per download, which prior to this product was unheard of in in anything you would do, and we we have another product. But in any case, you know, that's that
was one of the the the the greatest parts about it. Secondly, which I think is most important, and I think the most important for our entire industry because this is the problem within, I think, you know, and I'm a I'm a newbie. You're you've been doing it a long time. I'm a newbie. I mean, you go back to, like, the 2006 or 2005. Like okay. But I realized that, you know,
everyone said there's so many of these podcast listeners. The beautiful thing about what we're doing here is I may never have listened to a podcast on, you know, Apple or Spotify or any of the other platforms, but I just read an article. I just clicked on to something, and all of a sudden, I'm listening
to a podcast. And and that's the beauty, I think, as a whole for the industry is just the growth that, you know, we hope to bring because I think it's very difficult with everything else out there, and we've talked about it, whether it's, you know, social media and putting a link on, LinkedIn or Instagram. No one's clicking off. You know, I hear an ad, and I hate to say it, but,
like, you know, you hear an ad on you're listening to a Podcasting. I have to remember that Podcasting, because I'm not I'm not clicking out of the podcast I'm listening to. Unless it's terrible like mine, people might click out and go listen. But, like, you know, that's the reason Trailergram has taken off since we launched it at Podcasting movement this past, August. You know, it's funny you say that about the social media aspect. A lot
of people, they wanna advertise in social media. What I what I found when working with clients was if somebody is, you know, like you said, they've got 10 minutes before a meal, maybe they're in the bathroom, whatever they're doing, they're spending time on one of these social platforms. That's what they wanna be doing. They don't wanna click a link and be taken off there. It's like, no. I'm scrolling Instagram to scroll Instagram. Like, yeah, maybe I'll
see your podcast and be like, oh, interesting. Maybe I'll think about that later. But we we rarely ever go outside of that platform to do it. So I I totally agree with you there. But just to kinda bring this home for folks, this was the the concept of putting these podcast players inside of articles is something that I don't think enough organizations, enough even enough independent podcasters
take advantage of. When I was at the journal, it it it took a lot of begging and pleading for us to finally get them to agree to do this, to say, hey. You put up an article about interest rates today. We have this interview with either reporter or, you know, someone from the Fed or whatever. Just put it right there in that article and, you know, now people can find similar content. And when we did that, we would definitely see more interest, more attraction. And so imagine you can do that,
but you're not just limited to your own publication. You could take it to, like you said, a People Magazine, an ESPN, an Athletic. Right? Like, all these major publishers that are putting out content that's getting 1,000 and sometimes millions of hits. Yeah. It's exactly right. So you basically had the idea about, 10 years prior to us or more for Trailergram, which I just learned, at which you are at. Was wasn't my idea. Which is which is wish. Which is absolutely is is correct.
And, you know, the other thing about it and and thinking about it, when you're looking at how we do it and, you know, you want to focus on contextually relevant content, is the fact that you have these publisher sites that we use. We have probably about, between 10 and 20,000 sites just in North America that are are brand quality sites that you you would imagine. But what we do and and the the magic of the engineering behind TrailerGram is really not just, hey. I'm a Jets fan.
Here's a Jets podcast. I mean, that that's a pretty good sign that they might be interested. But we even go further in terms of, you know, the the engineering capabilities and the machine learning, that, you know, goes on beyond just, you know, putting contextually relevant content next to these articles. And and then also getting the data. Where did the majority of people come from?
Where of listeners who actually then listen to the podcast. And then we could even tell once they've listened, we found, you know, especially these chronological shows work extremely well. You know, we tested 1 or we did one where 60% of the people who, put in to receive push notifications for this, chronological It was a crime, show. 60% of the people who who, put in to receive push notifications for this show actually ended up then listening to all 8 episodes. So it works extremely
well. Obviously, it works for just general Podcasting that are weeklies or monthlies, but chronological, it we've noticed, you know, a really amazing effect. That's that's incredible. And so, you know, the other thing about this that's so nice is that it's just so easy to do. Anybody can do this. You don't have to be, you know, you don't have to have a degree in marketing. You
don't have to have a background in media buying. You can literally just go to the website, sign up, and start making some decisions, test a few things out. What would you say is the, you know, number one thing that a podcaster hearing this and wants to use it? What should they prepare? What should they plan? Like, how do they best capitalize on your platform if they're gonna start using it? Good question. I would say the best thing you could do is test, just like you said. I
would test it out. Now a lot of you know, we we sell it by trailer place. Right? So, basically, for $500, you know, you get 15,000 trailer plays. For a $1,000, you get 50,000, and it goes up upwards of, you know, some people spending a lot more than that, 15,000, some of these different, companies. The beauty about it is the 500 and 1,000 are are really just it it it's
test for a lot of people who wanna be like, how does this work? Because as we talk, there's a lot of stuff out there, and people are telling you how to grow your audience and and what you can do because even I could do this, and that's what makes this great because this is it's a platform. So, basically, most of the people who are uploading their Podcasting, basically or uploading their trailers. Sorry. It it's it's super simple. In fact, if you go to Trailergram.co now, you could even
go play around with the back end to show how easy it is. You upload your artwork, which is basically your, you know, your, podcast art. You upload an MP 3 of your trailer, and then you put in the text, basically, like, the podcast title, the subtext, the headline. You know, you you can even add short keyword kinda descriptions of the podcast. Once you have that all plugged in, which is very Samson, as I said, even I can do it, and I am the furthest thing from anyone who is tech savvy.
But once you do that, the next step is then we use Apple's categories, right, to to figure out how you are going to target your audience. So you upload your trailer, you put in your target, we give you up to 3 different targets that, you know, all based off of Apple's, you know, targeting. And then what you do is you basically put this in. It's, you can pay by Stripe. It's it's as I said, I would recommend the
500. Just test it. See how it works. And and then all of a sudden, in 20 you'll get an email from us. We make sure we check the content. It sounds right. You know, we we make sure it's proper. You'll get a email from us, and within 24 to 48 hours, your podcast trailer is playing next to contextually relevant content like you mentioned. Like, if it's, something about interest rates, it's next to a story about interest rates in the Wall Street Journal or wherever it might be. It it just makes
sense. And then in addition, you know, the machine learning and AI, we find out where these people are coming from. And what you can do, and you'll see is you'll see a huge push in the amount of downloads you get. And then the cool thing is, lastly, after you do all that, we start sending out these push notifications to people's phones because a lot of people, like we talked about, they, oh, they download you know, they they subscribe for push notifications, but then they're going, you know, to
wherever it is. And then you'll find a lot of people start listening once the push notifications go out to your podcast. And and and we keep sending push notifications as new episodes go out, and it tends to work really well for the podcaster who is looking to grow audience. But I will say, listen. It's incredible the what it comes to and what the download ends up being, you know, between, I would say, on average, on the 200 campaigns we've run since September, between 5 and and 15¢.
And, of course, it depends on your content and quality. And the retention is okay. Like, it's not this there's no super you know, it's not a something that can just all of a sudden turn your show into, best hit. But I we can certainly when you look at the case studies on the website and you see how many downloads you're getting for the price and you can figure it out when it comes to pennies, it's pretty amazing to get people who actually then go and listen to the podcast. And you you
mentioned the measurability. So and correct me if I'm wrong. The way I understand it just for folks listening, so you're uploading an MP 3. So when that MP 3 plays, you're not gonna see that trailer play necessarily in your podcast host dashboard. However, when it comes to the future episodes that people are subscribed to now, those are coming from your host, so you will see those downloads. Right? You will be able to track that the way you would track play in Podcasting,
Google Podcasts. Right? All all the other places where people normally subscribe to your show. That's exactly right. So, basically, you will not see, the trailer plays. We we do have, though, you will have access to. It will show you, or we will show you, on our board. You're you're measuring that. We're measuring that. But the measurement of the actual listens, as long as, of course, they're IB compliant. And again, everything for us, we're monitored or, you know, IB CloudFlare will
show up as you just said. Mostly right now, mobile downloads, you know, in terms of whether it's coming from, you know, Chrome or or or, wherever it might be. You know? So so that is is how it works. But you will see them, you know, in your what whatever hosting platform you use, you will see the increase in in downloads, and that's where you have the access to that. We don't have the access to know
exactly, how many downloads you got. We just know from our clients that, you know, they'll they'll tell us, and and we are working on a a prefix attribution right now and hopefully in the next six weeks, we'll have that. So it just says trailergram. But as of right now and as of today, you will see the downloads, but they will come up in, like, you know, Chrome or Mozilla or whatever it might it might Tech. Whatever whatever browser people are using. So right once again, folks,
that is Trailergram.co. Cannot stress, checking it on enough. Of course, we'll have a link to it here in the show notes below. Robert, before we let you go, a couple of questions we're asking everybody here on the show. I mean, I know you are making big strides in the in the place of podcast discoverability. But, you know, is there any other spots in podcasting where you'd like to see some other types of improvements on the recording side, distribution, even on the listening
side? You know, that that that's a great question because really, for us, I was what I love about podcasting and and, you know, I went to school a long time ago, and I wanted to, be a sports reporter on WFAN, and, it's a radio station in the New York area for those across the country. Now there's you know, and at the time, there weren't
many. Now there's there's tons of them. And what I just realized, what I loved about TrailerGram and this product was that and and why I think this was by far just the biggest need was I could have incredible content. This show is incredible. You you know, it could be well, except when, you know, when you have other guests on, not me. But, so basically, like, if no one can discover it or find it, you can't build it. And people have created incredible content.
And that's what we're trying to do is trying to, like, even the playing field. But I would say, we've been so focused on audience development and really on on this part of the business. The only other aspect I would say is, you know, in terms of actual Podcasting, and especially in the business wherein where it's b to b,
and making sure, like, these podcasts are authentic. You know, there's more authenticity, you know, because you get a lot of people nowadays who wanna create podcasts, and they have a company, and it's not an advertisement. You know, podcasting's about conversations and empathy and authenticity. And I think that's really what a lot of folks are learning now, and brands are learning, and companies where, hey, we can do this, and it's gonna be better for you and your product, because
people, you know, they're tired of getting sold sold to. This is more authentic. I wanna hear the CEO speak. I wanna hear, you know, in a real way, in a real conversation. But there's, for me, I'm a newbie, you know. And sometimes that's a good thing, because in my last business, I was in it for 25 plus years and probably missed so many things that people came in. You know? Like, I remember Jeff Fluhr, who started StubHub, and I had my own business, and we were
gonna partner. And nah, said no. You know? Like, I I missed it. I was too into it. So the interesting thing and the biggest thing is jumping into this business 4 plus years ago, I saw it was all audience. It was all discoverability and audience. And, you know, that's why that's our primary focus. Alright. I I see that you're using a Audio Technica AT 2020
USB microphone here. You know, one of the things that we do on the show is not just talk about software, but we love talking about hardware and taking tours of other people's studio. Is there a piece of technology that you're looking for, whether it's for your studio or maybe something that you would offer to your clients to to get their hands
on? Yeah. You know, I think as as video becomes more important, I've noticed this, especially with clients who are doing branded Podcasting don't have a specific camera I would I would recommend, but, especially, as more and more of the Podcasting we do I mean I mean, 99% of them are are done via Riverside or, you know, any any type of platform that we're using that's virtual. Having the right camera, I have learned, it can be
make all the difference. Just like you said, having the right audio and and you're pretty good by picking up that you knew that, I know you know your products because I didn't even know the the numbers. Riverside does help you cheat a little bit. It does show, just show me what you're using. So but yeah. I get to. I was like, that is good because there's a lot of letters and
numbers, and I don't even know. But, yes, I think in that case, like, the importance nowadays and has technology just moves faster and faster from what I was using. I I think back, you know, to when I was doing this you know, I started doing most of my, interviews for how success happens in person. And, once these, you know, the riversides of the world and and you realized you could tape, I the quality is it's it's almost better, and sometimes, in some cases, it is than
being right there in person. And I find that I'm still able to get that same connection. I don't know if you find that, you know, with the person. Obviously, there's always, you know, being there, being in person, you know, and we have clients. I want I wanna be in the studio and bring people in, but the thing I love about this, the virtual world, is if you do have a good camera, you do have a good mic, you have good sound quality, number 1. I can
interview, you know, you know, you're in New Jersey now. I'm in I'm in New York. That's not too far. But we've done podcasts. I've done podcasts. I'm interviewing people. It's the next day in Australia. You know, it's amazing. That's been pretty cool to see in the last couple years. Yeah. I definitely, you know, discovered that during COVID that, you know, we could always interview folks audio wise, but then, really, once video became so important for us to connect to folks
and the way it has changed the game and it you're right. It's not the same as being in person, but it's nice to be able to see a person, see the visual cues, read their body language, you know, see if they're really paying attention or if they're off, you know, googling something else or, you know, watching Netflix on the side. So, having good video
definitely makes makes a big difference. And, you know, what we've been saying for the last few episodes, I I recently just started using my iPhone, the continuity camera, and Yeah. I I don't think I'm ever going back. And, I mean, until I go pay for, like, a, you know, $1500 mirrorless camera, this is a I'm gonna stick with this for a while. Alright. Last Hey. My kid my kid's trying to get me to buy that. That is not happening for her.
So Last thing we, we wanna ask everybody is outside of your own show, and I would say, I guess, your client show, is there a favorite podcast that you are listening to? You know, that one that as soon as it comes out, you are going to listen to it. Yes. There's a guy, and it's a podcast on the Jets. It's called, turn on yeah. It's, it's it's on
Patreon. It's Badlands. Joe Caparosa is the one of the hosts with Connor Connor Roger Connor Hughes, Connor one of I forget his name, but he's they are great. I don't know if it's you. There's 2 1 there's 1 Conor that basically, is a Jets reporter. Right. And Connor, this Connor actually, he is on s and y postgame. I love their podcast. As a die hard Jet fan,
and you will know this, it is therapy. After listening to or, sorry, watching, the Jets lose, you know, in spectacular fashion, or just be miserable, or this is therapy for me, and it is the minute it comes out, I basically you know, Patreon alerts me. I go on there. I click, and I as long as I don't have anything doing, I listen, or I save it for, like, oh, this is like you know, I don't wanna show you how sad my life is, but, like, this is my Friday night. Like, this is gonna be fun. Like
but they've been extremely helpful. That by far, their their platform, and they have a few different shows now and people, but, Joe and Connor, are are absolutely fantastic. Excellent. Well, I I'll have to check it out. I honestly, my feeling is when the Jets games are over, I don't wanna see from them again, and then Sunday rolls around. I'm like, oh, I'm so excited, and that's that's, you know, that's our
life. No. I tend to I tend to listen when, you know, it it it's it the problem is with the shows they come out with that are, like, prepping for the game when, you know, like, it's early in the season and they're still, like, you know, in it, Yeah. There's hope. I love those. Late in the season, it takes it does take me a few days to then go listen and go that route. So in any case, you know, it's, it's definitely a podcast worth worth checking
out. They do a great job. They put a lot of time and effort into it. I've I've learned from being in the podcast business how much time and effort. You know this from developing Podcasting. You know, how hard it is, but but they do a good job. And and I would recommend it for you if, if you could handle it, but it seems like you have a better strategy by just turning it all tuning it all out. Yeah. That that that doesn't work
better. Well, it has been a joy and a pleasure. We've been chatting with Robert Tuchman. He's the cofounder of Amaze Media Labs. You can check out their work at amazemedialabs.com. They are the creators of Trailergram, trailergram.co. I'll have a link to it again. That's a place where you can upload your trailer and have your show appear on countless articles across the web from big name publishers and and grow your audience.
He's also the host of How Success Happens with Entrepreneur Magazine. You should check it out. And as we've learned, he is also a lifelong miserable Jets fan like myself. Robert, It has been a pleasure. Thanks for joining me today. Thanks, Mat. Thanks for having me on your show.