I usually don’t mix entertainment with digital marketing but a few days ago I saw something unique and interesting.
On the Joe Budden Podcast, the star of the podcast had a major announcement. A MAJOR partnership with Spotify.
The New York Times describes him well.
Joe Budden has the No. 1 podcast on the iTunes music podcast chart — five slots ahead of the NPR standard-bearer “All Songs Considered.” The Joe Budden Podcast With Rory and Mal is produced at a friend’s house in Queens.
Mr. Budden had a brief taste of mainstream success as a rapper with a Top 40 hit in 2003 before his career stalled. Now he has become a kind of volatile elder statesman of hip-hop, holding forth on his podcast, social media and YouTube before an audience of millions.
His soliloquies and tirades, whether a careful examination of a rap diss or a nuanced defense of XXXTentacion, the controversial young rapper who was murdered in June, lend him a credibility he never quite had as an artist.
Mr. Budden is now banking on a new partnership with Spotify to expand on his success. Starting this fall, his podcast will stream exclusively on that platform. (He plans on still uploading videos of the show on YouTube.)
The goal, according to Courtney Holt, head of studios and video at Spotify, is to “develop out not just this show, but other shows in the future.” When asked why he thought Spotify was the best home for his show, Mr. Budden said simply, “They weren’t afraid of me.”
Now as interesting as all that is, the really interesting part to me was his podcast from a few days ago.
Joe talks extensively about how the music industry had metrics about his value as an artist and that value was $250,000. He chose to walk away from the traditional music industry and start a podcast.
He talks about the challenges he and his friends had with starting a podcast for FREE with no guaranteed listeners and how they had to do episode after episode in faith that something would happen.
He talks about the persistence that is needed as a digital entrepreneur and even more importantly, the power of saying NO even when it’s not easy.
It’s a rare discussion about the persistence needed to be a digital entrepreneur, how to avoid bad deals, to understand how new technologies affect your industry and adapt accordingly and finally how to win.
He and his team now have a multi-million dollar deal with Spotify. Inspiring.
If you want to learn about how hard work and persistence online can pay off for you and your business, watch the episode below.
I have started the video below at the relevant sections. He is an entertainer so there will be some profanity and it might not be safe for work language wise.
Enjoy.
