What have I learned after recording 100 competitive intelligence podcasts? A lot. Here are the top ten B2B Market Research podcasts and the things I learned behind the scenes.
In this podcast I cover:
- What I’ve learned from producing 100 podcast episodes.
- The top 10 posts as defined by Google Analytics and social sharing data.
- Which topics resonated most with you and why.
Thank you for listening to this episode! If you enjoyed it, please feel free to share it using the social media buttons on this page.
We would also be VERY grateful if you could rate, review, or subscribe to the B2B Market Research podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or TuneIn.
Speakers:
Sean Campbell – CEO of Cascade Insights
[Modified Transcript]
After reaching 100 podcast episodes, what have I learned? That’s the subject of today’s podcast.
This podcast is brought to you by Cascade Insights. Cascade Insights specializes in B2B market research services for B2B technology companies. Our specialization helps us deliver detailed insights that generalist firms simply can’t match.
To learn more about us, visit our company profile, check out our free competitive intelligence resources and sign up for our monthly newsletter.
Back in January 2012, I launched the Competitive Intel podcast. Hence, I’ve been producing this podcast for over three years now, which has led to 100 episodes.
Given that, I thought it was the right time to reflect on some of the most popular episodes (based on Cascade Insights’ Google Analytics statistics), and even talk a little bit about what it’s been like to produce a podcast.
With that, let’s get into the top 10.
The top 10 competitive intelligence podcasts
1. Our most popular podcast is the one I did focused on the 5 essential truths of CI analysis.
I based that podcast in large part on an article that a CIA analyst had produced, reflecting on his 40 years in the intelligence business. I talked about each one of the truths he mentioned in turn. And the one that I want to return to is his third truth, “good analysis makes the complex comprehensible, which is not the same thing as simple.” That is a really, really good point to remember. Again, if you want to see the five in total you can always go back and revisit the page where we’ve got that podcast hosted.
2. Our next most popular podcast is the one I did focused on the needs of product managers.
Product managers have questions that run deep, especially in the B-to-B tech sector. I covered a few of these in the podcast, 15 Competitive Intelligence Questions Product Managers Need to Answer.
In the podcast, I looked at a few things — for example, what kind of assets drove customers to pare down the list of vendors they actually engage with? This is a sign of when you’re perhaps losing early in the process and not even aware of it.
I also went into things like what personas were involved in the buying process and what roles were involved. Additionally, I discussed other factors, including the cost of the solution and the key buying criteria that drove the customer to consider a competitor’s offer.
3. The third most popular competitive intelligence podcast was the one that I did on the changing nature of the B to B sales and marketing process. I interviewed the author of The Challenger Sale for this, and talked a lot about how competitive intelligence must adapt to these changes. This remains one of the more popular podcasts in terms of actual social shares, even though it’s third on the list in terms of actual page views.
4. The next most popular podcast in the fourth position is the interview with Mark Smith on NodeXL. The NodeXL podcast is popular because NodeXL is of the best tools you can find that provide a “quick” introduction to social network analysis. That’s a funny way to put it, because I don’t think it’s really a quick way to do social network analysis. But NodeXL is the tool gets the closest to it, given it’s just embedded right in Excel.
5. The next most popular podcast is when I talked to Kris Wheaton from MercyHurst. MercyHurst is a great institution, one of the best ones out there when it comes to “growing” competitive intelligence analysts. I had a really interesting discussion with Kris about what makes a good intelligence analyst and the program at MercyHurst overall. That podcast was obviously of interest to a lot of folks.
6. The next most popular competitive intelligence podcast is when I talked about hiring world class analysts. In the podcast I talked about a lot of things that go beyond just pure analytical horsepower, down to the level of, “What’s the kind of person you’re hiring, and can they be a really effective consultant?” This, I believe, is key when you’re building a shared services team like a CI team.
7. The seventh most popular podcast was my interview with Wayne Jones of IBM. I think what probably struck people about this podcast is when Wayne talked about the research agenda and how important it is to establish a really good one if you’re going to build a well performing CI team.
8. The eight most popular podcast was on uniting competitive intelligence and market research efforts. I think the reason this podcast is so popular, is people have struggled to figure out the boundary between these two disciplines. The outer edges of each discipline is pretty easy to identify, but the boundaries between them as they merge into one another…well…that’s a little harder. I talked about marrying the customer-centric view of market research with the outward view of competitive intelligence — and I can only assume that that was one of the key things that resonated.
9. The ninth most popular podcast in terms of page views — although interestingly enough, this is one of the more popular ones in terms of actual podcast audio plays — is Three Key Ways that Competitive Intelligence is Different Than Spying. I talked a lot about how competitive intelligence professionals disclose their identity, how they practice their craft, and walked through a lot of the differences.
I think this is a question that many people have about competitive intelligence, including where the line is in terms of ethical and non-ethical behavior.
10. The tenth most popular podcast, 5 Fundamental Truths, distills key takeaways from the CIA analyst’s article I discussed at the top of this post.
What I’ve learned about podcasting…
In closing, I’ve also learned a lot of things about making a podcast. Audio quality is increasingly important. It’ll never be perfect, especially when you’re doing interviews — particularly if those folks are remote and in other countries –just because audio quality issues aren’t fully within your control. But I constantly strive to make those things as best as I can.
I’ve also learned that you like transcripts just as much as you like the podcasts, and I think there’s a simple reason for that. For some people, I think sometimes it’s easier to read it than listen to it. Hence, I’ve made transcripts available and will continue to make them available for our archived podcasts.
What’s the road map for the next 100? Well, maybe some better intro music and perhaps closing music. But if I actually get to that, I’ll probably have too much free time on my hands. :)
Then I’ll probably do some more interviews with luminaries in the CI space, and will also talk about how various disciplines interact with the world of competitive intelligence.
With that, I want to thank you for listening to this podcast.
Photo thanks to: iabusa