Elizabeth Paige Fierman from ESPN's Audio Division on Event Marketing

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Brian Bosché:
All right, everyone. Welcome back to creativeBTS. This is Brian Bosché and today I am so excited to welcome Elizabeth Paige Fierman, Senior Manager of Events and Marketing at ESPN. Elizabeth Page Fierman, hello, welcome. So excited to have you on.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
Thank you for having me. I've been so excited to do this.

Brian Bosché:
Yeah. It was great to meet through the marketing Twitter, Slack, and the happy hours we've been doing. It's been pretty amazing to see what kind of virtual communities crop up during the pandemic.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
Totally. I feel like I just never really put that much energy into Twitter before. It was more within my circle of friends, not about it being a tool to meet other people. I've been so blown away by meeting virtually all of these people that I feel like we run in the same circle and we've kind of become friendly with these people. It's been such a pleasant surprise during quarantine.

Brian Bosché:
Yeah. Twitter has never been more fun during one of the worst times of all of our lives, which is an interesting thing, but it's been so welcoming. And you're right, Twitter was not like this last year even, where everyone's responding to each other and there's nothing community-

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
It makes me feel better that you say that. I didn't know if I was just not using it properly or looking in the right places before, but it's just been so nice and the fact that we've kind of parlayed that into those virtual happy hours and stuff to really get to know people beyond a few hundred characters or whatever has been so nice.

Brian Bosché:
Yes. Well, I mean, this is the focus of the podcast events, but it is pretty magical how events brings people together more than just Twitter and Slack groups and texting each other.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
I will evangelize events for the rest of this podcast if you let me. I am all about community building in many different forums.

Brian Bosché:
So let's start off with, if you just want to go over your background a little bit, and then your current role at ESPN.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
I will try to exercise some brevity here. So to make it short and sweet and simple, I've always worked in sports in some capacity. So I went to Boston University for my undergrad, and while I was there, I interned in the Athletic Marketing and Communications Department at BU. Go Terriers. I interned for the Red Sox during two different post-season runs. That was more on the media relations side of things. Then I was also a manager of the men's hockey team at BU. So we did not-

Brian Bosché:
Wow. They had a good hockey team.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
Yes. Beanpot, if that means anything to anyone. We did not have a football team. Our basketball team was not particularly talented at that time. Our baseball team was clubs. So if you liked sports and went to BU, it was all about hockey. So I got to work under Jack Parker, who is a legendary college hockey coach who was at BU for over 40 years, and it was just so great. I mean, I was at the rink every day. That's usually my fun fact when I need to give those during an ice breakers. I spent almost every day of college at a hockey rink, but I can't ice skate. So fun fact. So after I graduated from BU with a degree in journalism, I knew that I wanted to write and I wanted to write about sports. In high school, I carried a Rick Reilly article around in my wallet.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
Like that's how much I loved the talent of sports writing, but I didn't want to write hard news or have to have a very strong opinion about something. So when I interned in the Athletic Communications Department at BU, it was great to learn about athletic media relations, and I could write website content and liaise with media and student athletes, and I could write media guides and all of that, but I was allowed to root for the team. So I loved that piece of it. So when I graduated, I actually worked at the college hockey conference that BU is a member institution of, so it's called Hockey East. A little bit north of Boston. I did not make much money. I had to nanny for two families to make ends meet, which I feel like is the-

Brian Bosché:
Wow. Yeah. That's the sports path.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
... I work in sports entryway for a lot of people. Then one of our member institutions, the University of Massachusetts Lowell was hiring for a sports information director right as my internship at Hockey East was wrapping up. So luckily I got that job. I worked primarily with field hockey. At the time, the school was division two they've since elevated to division one, but a national championship field hockey team, men's basketball, and softball. That was kind of what I had planned for myself for a while, was to work as a sports information director in media relations in college sports. I realized very quickly that you have to move around a lot to move up in college sports and-

Brian Bosché:
And sports in general.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
Yes, totally.

Brian Bosché:
The free agent acquisitions for the actual employees are often more than they have players themselves. Yeah.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
It's not.

Brian Bosché:
Yeah.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
Looking back now, I was probably like 23 or 24, but I was like, "I need some roots. I need to settle in somewhere." I actually had no intention, I grew up in Connecticut, I had no intention of coming... I mean, love New England. I was in Boston. I wasn't that far. But I was planning to stay in Massachusetts. Someone had passed along my resume to someone at ESPN and I always joke that when I was an SID, I did the stats side of the job so I could do all of the writing and work with all the different personalities with my coaches and student athletes.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
Of course, ESPN saw my resume and they said, "Oh, SID. Stats. Perfect. Here you go. Please follow through on this application for the stats and information group." And I was like, "Well, it's a foot in the door. It's a big company. It's a part of The Walt Disney Company. This could be a great opportunity." So I started at ESPN back in 2011, which I don't feel old enough to be able to say that I have been at this company for nine years.

Brian Bosché:
Almost 10 years. Almost 10. You're almost a decade in.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
I know. We get a plaque once we get to 10 years, so I'm very excited. With Mickey on it. But so I started off in stats and analysis and it was such a great entry point into the company because we touched so many different areas of the company. We worked with technology and production, and I did a lot of job shadowing with communications. Also by the way, I know I said I was going to be brief and I'm not succeeding.

Brian Bosché:
It's fine. You're doing great.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
So I really spent my first year, nose down, just trying to get good at my job, which is advice I give a lot of people. You're not going to get the next job if you're not putting your all into the job that you have.

Brian Bosché:
Focused on your own. Yeah.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
So I really spent a year just like, how can I be the best at this? How can I set myself apart? Then once I hit summer of 2012, it was my one year anniversary. I was like, "Okay, I'm still gonna work my butt off at my job, but I want to get a sense of the bigger picture of ESPN." So I challenged myself to meet with 12 people in 12 weeks. Just take them to coffee or lunch or anything like that. Just to learn whether it was an area I was interested in maybe growing my career into or just had no interest in ever working in, but wanted to know more about it. And so that summer, 12 weeks, I met with 12 different people. Some of them are incredible mentors that I still talk to regularly. Some of them, I don't think I've ever spoken to again after that coffee, but it was just, I don't know, I think a great way to put myself out there and get to know people and learn more about the company.

Brian Bosché:
That's a great advice for anyone. It's really hard when you first start doing it. As starting the company, like doing the customer development, the customer research, finding investors. But once you get in the habit of just like, "Oh, let's just get a 30 minute coffee," it can become so much easier and you have no idea what doors those open.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
I feel like I'm making fun of myself when I say this, but people love to talk about themselves. So really you're not putting anyone out by asking them just about their experience and everything.

Brian Bosché:
That's what the podcast industry is based on.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
Yes. Totally. So that was a really great experience. I made some great connections and then I got into my dream Master's program at Northwestern. It was in the Medill School and it was a Master's in integrated marketing communications. I was kind of mentally like, "All right, I'm going to move to Chicago. I love Chicago. It's one of my favorite cities. Let's do this." Then I crunched the numbers and thought about, "Okay, so I can quit my full-time job and have to pay for grad school. Or Disney has an amazing education reimbursement program. I can stay full-time at ESPN and have no social life and just try to juggle grad school and working full-time." That was eventually the route that I went. My managers were incredibly supportive and it was just such an amazing benefit from our company to reinvest in employees in that way.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
So I have a very weird path around ESPN. So when I was in grad school, I knew that I needed to have a bit more of a regular schedule. I didn't want to be working weekends and nights when sports were happening. So I actually moved into human resources and I worked in diversity inclusion and wellness, which is not always paired together at companies, those three titles. So I did that for about a year and a half. I think I started that role two weeks before grad school and I moved onto my next role two weeks after I finished classes. So it definitely served its purpose.

Brian Bosché:
Yes. Definitely. So you're a Northwestern grad and ESPN? You had to go that journalist route and get that little check mark? How many at ESPN are-

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
Oh, totally. Greeny and Jay [crosstalk 00:10:01] and my grandma are very proud of me. But I think it's funny because obviously I work in marketing now. I think it is where I'm meant to be. But I consider that time in HR almost... I jokingly call it my MBA in ESPN. I think it was just so helpful to learn more about our organizational structure and how and why decisions are made. I think that my previous role was a little bit more myopic in terms of the scope of what I saw and learned and engaged with. So this was a much broader perspective of the company. So I did that.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
Then in 2015 I became manager of event marketing for ESPN's audio division. So that is what I've kind of grown into now and where I'm at. The role has changed tons over the last five and a half years. But I always say the first four years at ESPN, I loved the company. I just hadn't quite found what I wanted to do yet. Once I stepped into this role, it was like, "Okay, those first four years I was paying my dues. It was totally worth it." I've just been so happy and felt so fortunate getting to be in the role that I'm in now.

Brian Bosché:
Yeah. So that is a perfect segue into our topic today, which is audio podcasts and how you pair them with events. So you say ESPN audio division, so that obviously is a broader spectrum than just podcasts. So give us the quick pitch on what ESPN's audio division actually covers.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
So I think from a fan or consumer facing perspective, they would see the brand as ESPN radio. So both terrestrial radio and satellite, like you can receive our content on Sirius XM and through other digital distribution partners, and then ESPN podcasts. So sort of an umbrella term, and I would refer to it as ESPN audio, but those are the two that my job touches primarily, are radio and podcasts.

Brian Bosché:
How many podcasts or radio shows do you have to cover in your role?

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
It varies all the time. From a radio perspective, it's typically our weekday daytime lineup. So that would be like 6:00 A to 7:00 P. So it's typically four to five shows. Then from a podcast perspective, I would say it changes every year, essentially, as we'll get into more with my role, I do all of the live events. So whenever any of the shows are out on the road or doing a live show in front of an audience. So we started out traveling to shows our first year, and then that grew to three our second year. I think last year we were up to maybe 8 to 10 different titles that we had live events for. So it varies and it's continuing to grow in terms of the number of shows that I touch regularly.

Brian Bosché:
Yeah. I remember a few years ago when we were at Slope, we had a weekly show that we would do about different marketing topics and one of them was podcast marketing. At that time, it was starting to become more popular to market podcasts without just the RSS feed or without just subscribing. People were starting to go into, "Oh, we can use video to market audio and we can go on social." A lot of people ran into challenges of, well, how do we use social media to market audio? Because it's mostly a visual platform. So it was kind of a difficult time to actually get podcasts out there.

Brian Bosché:
So how have you seen podcast marketing, just kind of a high level, change over the last five years and how it's grown? Because I wouldn't necessarily expect there to be... I mean, at ESPN, I do. But I wouldn't expect events plus podcast as this thing that people are going to innovate in and push forward, but it's enormously successful. You see all of these podcast events now have cropped up in the last few years. So I'd love to hear from your perspective, how has it changed since you've started at the audio division?

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
That's a great question. In my specific role, I would say the first year and a half to almost two years, I was almost exclusively working on radio live events. At the time it was Mike & Mike, our national morning show. That has grown. I think that before COVID had derailed some of our plans for the year, that this year was going to be the first year that we were potentially going to have even more live podcast events than radio events. It's still a ton of radio events, still a huge priority for our company and for my team in particular, but just adding more to my plate, not really taking anything away, but it's been really exciting to see that growth.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
I think to your earlier point, ESPN is such a different animal than some traditional podcast distributors because our talent, for the most part, you probably see them on TV or you probably read them on espn.com. Some of them have live stream components. So Fantasy Focus Football is our flagship fantasy football program. They have a show that can be downloaded as an audio podcast. It can also be streamed on Twitter live as a show when they're daily during the football season. So I think that we're certainly not the only podcast distribution network that has the benefit of multi-platform opportunities, but definitely something that not everyone has the opportunity to lean into.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
But yeah, in terms of the growth from an event marketing perspective, we're seeing more and more in the marketplace. We are doing more and more. I think more and more people are adopting podcasts as something that they are interested in. So just like you would go to a venue for a live concert or you would go to a live comedy show, I think a lot of people are starting to go to live podcast events. I could talk for a long time about why I think people enjoy them, but that's just the growth that I'm seeing. Just the quantity, the volume of events that we're doing, and that there seems to be an appetite for.

Brian Bosché:
Yeah, well, I think podcasts are unique because stand up comedians, you go to a stand up comedian show, you maybe heard a few of their sets or they might be new for a concert. You listen to their music. But for podcasts, like if my normal rotation, like if I were to meet Zach Lowe in person, I feel like he's my friend. I hear him in my ears, like an hour or two-

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
I feel like you're giving me a segue to what I wanted to say next.

Brian Bosché:
It's incredible. If you've seen the meme, this is like the verbal meme, but listening to a podcast and you're laughing with friends who are on the wall who are not real. It feels like they're your friends. So when you go to an event, I get to see Zach Lowe for the first time or I get to see whoever my favorite podcasters are, it feels much more intimate and personal. I feel like podcasts-

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
[crosstalk 00:16:53]-

Brian Bosché:
Yeah. It feels like podcasts, because I have that relationship with them that I don't with other types of media or mediums, it's I want to go to an event.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
So that's exactly what I think makes podcast events so special and what gets me so energized and excited by them, is you and I are both avid consumers of podcasts, but it is traditionally a very singular experience. I listen to them when I go for a walk or when I'm in my car. I actually find it kind of distracting to sit on my couch and listen, I like to almost be focused doing something else-

Brian Bosché:
Yeah, me too.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
... so that my ears can just prioritize that audio content. So to your point, it feels like a very intimate conversation. I think that people let their guard down a little bit more on podcasts because it doesn't feel as high pressure or maybe as polished as like a TV appearance or something. You don't have radio clocks that you're trying to hit. It's just a little bit more of a free flowing platform.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
So you take something that feels very intimate but singular and you get in a room with 250 people who know all the same inside jokes as you. All of a sudden, this podcast host or talent is on the stage and they say something and everyone laughs and you look around and you're like, "Wait, did we just become best friends?" It's an instant community, which I think the first podcast event we ever did was back in 2016 and we hadn't really done anything like that before. All of a sudden there was one joke off the top and everyone laughed and almost looked at each other and it felt like lightning in a bottle. We were like, "I think there's something here."

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
It's just been so exciting to watch that grow, the way that people embrace producers of the show. It's not just about the high profile guests, it's about these people who are in their ears all the time and they feel like they have this long standing relationship. It's just so exciting. I mean, one of my favorite parts of my job is that I get to take something that means a lot to so many people, but probably feels a little untouchable, and I get to bring that to them and they can touch and feel and see some of their favorite hosts. I really just take so much pride in the holistic experience that we provide with ESPN podcasts live events that that is just really special to me to create that entire experience.

Brian Bosché:
It's magical. This is maybe Grantland days, but I went to Seattle event with Shea Serrano where he came for a book signing-

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
Shea is the best.

Brian Bosché:
Shea-

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
If he was the only person I could follow on Twitter, I think I'd be perfectly happy.

Brian Bosché:
Exactly. So he came to like a little coffee shop in Seattle. So I went with a few friends. Everyone there I could have been friends with. You're just on such the same playing field. He was there talking. He did the signing. It's funny how you're starstruck by someone like Shea. But you're right, it was like a much more community feel. We just grabbed beers with people who were there, which I would never do at a concert or something like that typically. It was like another community.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
Also, concerts are probably focused more on arena tours and stadium tours. I think that I personally am so protective about the size of our live podcast events because you lose a little bit of that intimacy. I think that what is so important, so appealing about podcasts is that small, intimate community and relationship that people feel like they have with talent. So a lot of times when we structure our events, we'll typically incorporate a Q and A portion, almost like a live mailbag. I try to always incorporate some type of meet and greet for people and just to...

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
I sit there and I think about, "Is there anyone I like enough that I would wait in line for 45 minutes to take a picture with?" Just the fact that these people do feel so passionately and just want those two minutes to be able to shake someone's hand and say, "I got into journalism because of you or," I don't know, "I met my husband because of a fantasy football league and now we listen to this podcast together." Like people just having that opportunity to have their time to... They're so used to listening to these hosts and now they get to have hosts listen to them for a couple of minutes. I just think it's so special to watch.

Brian Bosché:
Yeah. They're not like movie stars. Like Zach Lowe is not a movie star. It's funny when you talk about the cross platform and like you get to have him on The Jump and on TV. It's like, "Oh, this is cute, Zach." Like he looks so sheepish. He is clearly is expanding his comfort zone to get onto TV and do things. But you're right, you're not starstruck going to see the Rock or something. It's like, "Oh, it's like a normal person who's a journalist that likes the same things that I do." You're right. That intimate experience is really important and brings me to the next thing I wanted to talk about, which was what are the different parts of putting these events together? You've mentioned a few off hand, but there's so many different components from the sponsorship side and the brand side versus the guests versus the audience and the fans. So what are some of the different components that you work on when you organize an event like this?

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
I always say that I organize it from soup to nuts. So I am working with our content teams to determine if there are particular markets, whether it's from a content storyline or a listenership perspective, that would be great to go to. Then I'm researching different venues and visiting those to see what feels like the right size and fit and layout for what we want to do. Working with the producer on kind of what their vision is for the content and logistically how we can make that happen. Do they want to have a video component? Is that feasible in this venue? If not, is there a way to make something else happen? How many guests do they want to have? Then how do I want to design the stage to accomplish that?

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
As sponsorship grows with podcasts as a business, learning about different sponsor activation opportunities in ways that these events can be beneficial to our sales partners. Really managing relationships with the venues, the talent, the producers just kind of... I try to think of myself almost like a spoke in a wheel and there's just-

Brian Bosché:
All these options.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
I'm hiring the engineer and I don't know the first thing about audio engineering, but I know someone who does. So making sure that they're aligned and communicating efficiently with the producer to make sure that their goals are met and how they need to communicate or record is met, and making sure that the venue is comfortable with what our game plan is. Just every detail. I don't necessarily do it all, but I touch it all, if that makes sense.

Brian Bosché:
Yeah. Yeah. For specific shows, is there a frequency that you typically take on? Is it like once a month or are there campaigns? It almost seems like there could be different structures depending on the season or what they're covering.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
Yes. I think you've hit the nail on the head there. I think we try to take Fantasy Focus Football out a couple of times every football season. Just in the last year or so, we started doing the Woj Pod Live. So we did one just because he had a great interview opportunity. So we were able to just jump on it and turn around an event last December pretty quickly. But then for content reasons and everything, we were able to do a live show in Chicago for the NBA All Star game. So sometimes it's directly tied to content, sometimes it's actually, like I said, a lot of our talent have other commitments outside of their podcast, so sometimes it's almost looking for a pocket of time where they're not jammed up in there on TV five days a week or something like that. So it really just depends.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
I think we have our sports specific podcasts, but then we also have more personality-driven podcasts whose conversations are a bit more evergreen. I used to work on the live events for 30 for 30 Podcasts. So those weren't live podcast recordings, but we still wanted some audience engagement opportunities. So they were more like panel discussions around the series. So yeah, I don't think that there's a one size fits all in terms of frequency. I think a little bit is driven by the content calendar. Some of it's just driven by talent availability. But yeah, everything's been flipped on its head right now, so I almost don't even remember how we planned out a whole year before coronavirus.

Brian Bosché:
So before we hop into the specific case study, what has it been like transitioning to do everything virtually? Is it the same consistency and pace? What is it like now that we can't actually meet in person?

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
So I just feel very fortunate that I think that virtual meetings and happy hours and things like that have become second nature to so many people. So we did, right before UFC 251, we did Ariel Helwani's MMA show as our first fan-facing virtual live podcast event. On the one hand, part of me was bummed that people don't get to take that photo with him or have that in-person intimate experience. But I think it was also great because people weren't tied to a certain geography. It wasn't like you had to be in this market in order to attend or be able to afford to fly yourself to that market or something. It was like it removed a lot of those barriers. So it's also really exciting for me that we get to do these virtual live podcast events because I think we can reach a lot more people and we don't lose necessarily the intimacy of a 300 person event versus the 600 event. A 600 person event doesn't feel that much different when it's virtual.

Brian Bosché:
And do you have audience participation? Are people asking questions and you're managing that as well?

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
Yeah, we had people for this particular event submit questions as part of their registration. Then we did some live polling, so there was some engagement and interaction there. I think that we'll keep growing those and see what works and what feels like the best fit. One thing I try to pride myself in when it comes to these podcasts live events is that there is not one formula that is the same for every single show. So a Fantasy Focus Football show will feel really different from the Mina Kimes show, will feel really different from 30 for 30 Podcasts, will feel really different from Woj Pod. So I think that all the fans are really different and I try to cater to what that community would find most appealing.

Brian Bosché:
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I wonder how much the mix will continue because when I'm thinking about events going forward and the different projects I have, it's just so easy and so accessible. It's like, "Oh, I don't really care where you live anymore." It's like, "Let's just grab a beer and we can just do it virtually."

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
I think that we will certainly, when we're able to, hope to get back to in-person live events. But I also think one of the challenges, like I mentioned before, is so many of our ESPN talent have other commitments outside of their podcasts. So it might not be feasible for someone who's on TV five days a week to go to a different city to do a live event for their podcast. So the opportunity to not replace what we do with in-person events, but supplement and add to is really exciting that we've... I feel like necessity is the mother of invention or whatever that quote is.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
So have we always had the technical capabilities to do these virtual live podcast events? Sure. But we hadn't needed to and so I don't think we had really explored it. I also think that the virtual event wasn't as widely as accepted six months ago as it is now because it's the only option people have. So I think going back to removing barriers for people to participate and enjoy and engage, I think those barriers are a lot lower now, which is exciting for all the different possibilities.

Brian Bosché:
You had the technology to do virtual events, but a lot of other people did not or did not know how to work it or did not have zoom installed or whatever their video conferences before.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
I didn't even know what Zoom was before.

Brian Bosché:
Yeah. So now you actually have the audience who has it downloaded, knows how to get it going really quickly. From being in the software world, that is a huge benefit. Because it's even the simplest things can be really hard for new users, so it's opening that up a lot. I'm even thinking about like the NBA's restarting. Now we have the first scrimmages today. I'm like, "All right, let's go to a NBA watch party. Which Zoom should I join?" It's not which bar. It's like which Zoom watch parties should I have?

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
People are so creative that they've been able to fill those gaps in different and creative ways. I think that it just highlights people's need for community and they've found a way to create it and to keep it afloat despite challenges with having to stay apart.

Brian Bosché:
Yeah. So as we transition, in creativeBTS podcasts, I like to go into an actual case study. So it's not just the high level things. When I'm legally allowed to, in some cases they can't. They can't discuss campaigns, but that's all right. Agencies are particularly tricky to not be able to discuss their clients. But wanting to go over the Fantasy Focus Football show and the first event you had there that we talked a lot about a little bit before. But would love to talk through what instigated that first event, what was the process to put it together, what were some of the results, and how did it change your goals moving forward with these events?

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
I don't know. Gosh. Next month will be four years ago and I still remember it like it was yesterday. To that point, as I mentioned, I had been doing live radio events, so still sponsor activation and hospitality and the content and promotion and the fan engagement pieces of that. But I went into a live podcast event thinking, "Okay, so instead of doing this from 6:00 to 10:00 in the morning, we're just going to do this at 7:00 at night." But we've got our big, we call it a flex desk. It's what you'd see at like any remote stadium or anything like that. Like this big clunky desk. We had lugged it in on probably the hottest day of the year in August of 2016 in New York City. It was so humid. It was disgusting.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
So we set up this desk and it just instantly felt so wrong. We were like, "I just see them on like a director's chair and just more laid back." So after setting up the whole desk, we squashed the whole thing and we put them on these director's chairs and we had to run out to a Home Goods or something and find some little tables that they could put a bottle of water on since they weren't going to have a desk in front of them, which felt like such a foreign concept. It just fit. I kind of alluded to it earlier, but all these people piled in and they had paid us money for tickets, which was also something we hadn't done before.

Brian Bosché:
Kind of crazy.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
But-

Brian Bosché:
Four years ago, podcasts were... They've grown a lot in the last four years. This is early.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
Yes. It's what we were seeing in the marketplace, but it's just... Typically we would set up shop for a radio, TV, simulcast somewhere and if people swung by, that was great. We'd usually get a great audience, but you just never really knew until people showed up and were like, "Wait, they mentioned this once on the podcast and it sold out in, I think it was 47 minutes or something? They're paying us to come here? This feels crazy." So yeah, people lined up around the block on this swampy hot day in New York and our stage looked nothing like any of our events had looked like before. We had made sort of goody bag type things for everyone. We're like, "If they're paying us money, we have to make sure that we feed them and we give them T-shirts-"

Brian Bosché:
That's so funny. Yeah.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
"... and we need to give them an ESPN magnet thing."

Brian Bosché:
It's like a conference.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
Yes. "We need to make this worth their while." And they just piled in and filled up the room. It was a sold out crowd. Again, first time we were doing this. There was no green room or dressing room. We were in the bottom floor of a barbecue restaurant in Manhattan, so it smelled like smoked brisket.

Brian Bosché:
This is perfect for that audience. Are you kidding me?

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
Yes. Yes. There was a little stage, but it was for like when a house band would come, so it wasn't a big stage. Like I said, no dressing room or green room or anything. So talent had no choice but to kind of mingle with fans for the hour between us opening doors and the event starting, and it was magical. Like these people got to hang out with, at the time, I think Matthew Berry had been on the podcast for almost 10 years maybe.

Brian Bosché:
Yeah. He was one of the first for fantasy football.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
So people felt like they knew him. Yes. So it was just so exciting for them and Stephania and Field and Matthew are such naturals and so great with people that those conversations they were authentically having, people were woven into their conversation during the podcast. We had a sponsor live read and they called up a couple who had flown in from Ohio to do the live read with them. Everyone just loved it so much.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
Then for the rest of that fall, we had two other shows and people were so tickled by this couple from Ohio that had done the live read with Matthew, that people started coming up to us at future shows. They were like, "Okay, I've practiced the live read. I've memorized it. Will Matthew call on me?" And that is gold for a sponsor. That's so much fun. So it just felt like such an instant community, which I feel like I keep going back to that word, but that's really what makes it so special, is we just kind of saw this is nothing like our radio live events, which are incredible and special and that is what works for that field and those fans. This is something totally different. Just because they're both consumed through your ears does not mean that they should be treated the same way from an event marketing perspective. It was just such a quick realization. Like I said, it felt like lightning in a bottle. We were like, "We want to do more of this."

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
So it was pretty quick after we did that first one that we were all in. Then it was just a matter of determining what shows made the most sense to grow and travel and which markets made the most sense. So like I said, that first year we only traveled to shows. I think we had a total of five shows with two different titles and the next year we grew that to three or four. Then they just kept growing. So it's just been really exciting to watch that evolution and to get to work with different shows and talent and their fan bases.

Brian Bosché:
Yeah. Well, I can imagine from me being probably the smallest podcaster in the world, just to see who you're talking to, who your audience is, must be really special where we're talking into a Zoom right now. It's just us two. But there will eventually be listeners to this if I do my job right, which we'll talk about later, how I can get more people. Sam Pez was on the pod, always talks through Twitter, always at-ing. Maybe he'll tweet about this moment if he listened in. Sam, if you are listening to this moment-

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
Hint, hint.

Brian Bosché:
Hint, hint. But you get connected to the actual faces that are listening, so you actually feel like you might be talking to real human beings, which actually connects both sides instead of just the listeners that are connecting to the talent. It's so interesting when you find like, okay, we have lightning in a bottle that was a special moment. How do we replicate it? How do we grow it across shows? How did you convince management and the executives that, hey, this is lightning in a bottle? What did you have to prove? Because that's often a battle all marketers have to face, is how do I get this funded and move it forward.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
So I feel so fortunate. My boss, who's our senior director of audio marketing, and our head of podcast content and our vice president were all there. So I just feel incredibly supported that they were there. They would not let me fail. They were just as invested in this as I was. So they saw it too and it was a story that told itself. So I feel so spoiled that I didn't need to try to knock down people's doors to explain it to them. But then in terms of outside of that circle, I think we just kept telling that story with... That first year we had a couple reach out to us and they got engaged on stage during our Q and A, and there were just anecdotes like that that told the story for us, and how quickly we were selling out with one mention inside the podcast. We just tried to lean into those facts and anecdotes as much as possible because those things could tell the story for us better than we could with any other details that we tried to provide.

Brian Bosché:
Yeah. Yeah, those little moments can mean so much. When you actually are, for your KPIs or OKRs, or what are the goals, is it all just ticket sales, branded sponsorships, a combination of them? What makes you say that this event was successful? Because that magic is hard to actually turn into real numbers, objective things that you can actually sell up the chain.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
I think what's most valuable to us when it comes to live podcast events is just the audience engagement opportunity. It's not about selling tickets at a high price point or anything like that, or meet and greets are included in the ticket price. We're not trying to turn a profit from a ticket sales perspective. We do have sponsors that are tied to events, which that's exciting for them to be able to activate within these communities. But it's less about has this given us a spike in downloads for this episode. Our head of podcast content always says that sometimes listeners might not like a live show as much because it's almost like looking at someone else's vacation photos. So it's just like, "Oh, I'm so jealous. I wasn't there." But I think that there are so few opportunities for lots of our brands properties to engage with fans in this way and that's what's so valuable.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
I think there are certainly other metrics that are important. If we had a show that couldn't sell 20 tickets, like we would rethink that. But I think that, like I said before, it's not about selling out an arena and saying, "Okay, we can get in front of 6,000 people." It's did the 350 people who were here have the best time? Create the best memories? Are they avid fans that we were able to pull closer? Did they bring friends who weren't super keen or knowledgeable about the podcast and now we've created this memory for them that we've got a diehard listener now? So I think it's a little bit more soft metrics in that way.

Brian Bosché:
Well, the podcast seems like it has its own metrics and then the events and the experiences come off of that and just continue to bolster that. That's a component. That makes a lot of sense. To finish off with, I think luckily we're at the stage where a lot of companies aren't saying, "Well, should we start a podcast?" Many are starting podcasts. Many are getting into this space and seeing it as a crucial part of their content strategy. So what advice would you give to brands or different organizations who have started their podcasts to take on these types of events or to start getting into maybe events with our listeners a little bit more?

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
So I'll take a step back in terms of general marketing. Like the way my team is divvied up is we have our senior director of marketing and then I oversee the event marketing piece. We have partnership marketing from one of my colleagues and then brand marketing from another one of my colleagues. So they could both speak much more eloquently about their areas of expertise. There are so many tools in the toolkit that are available that fall under those very worthy areas. In terms of mine, I think that some people could feel like it would be a daunting task to do a live event because they look at Pod Save America selling out a 3,000 seat theater or something-

Brian Bosché:
Every time.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
Yeah.

Brian Bosché:
We get it.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
And it's just like, "Oh gosh, I wouldn't be able to do that." But I think like when you just talked about your experience with Shea and it's in a bar and it might be 20 people, but that's so valuable and so special for those 20 people. They're going to post pictures on their social media and tell their friends how they had the best time and people are going to be like, "That looks like fun. I want to know what he's up to. Oh, I can listen to this podcast. That's awesome." So I think when it comes to individuals starting smaller podcasts or companies, I think that, like I said before, one of the things that I love most about podcast live events is there is not one way to do it. I think there are those big titles that do 30 city tours and sell out theaters. I think My Favorite Murder does that and people try to scalp tickets for hundreds of dollars. But I think that there's equally important value in setting up shop in a bookstore or a coffee shop for 15 or 50 people and having a panel discussion or a Q and A, or just some kind of dialogue.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
I mean, I always refer to it as event marketing because that is my title and sort of how I came into it, but it's experiential marketing and it's about the experience that you're creating for people. I think that can look so many different ways. You just think about who is listening to you and what would be most interesting and valuable to them. I think that's how you get their buy-in and you create an experience that would be appealing to them.

Brian Bosché:
Yeah. That's great advice. It's not lower your expectations, but to be a great event for a podcast, you don't have to have the 3,000. It can just-

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
Right, and it doesn't have to be a live podcast recording where you've got an engineer and you are investing tons of money into recording equipment. Like I said, it could be a Q and A session that's off the record that you're just having with people as an opportunity to engage with them. I think in my role, we think a lot about audience development and audience engagement, and both of them are incredibly important, but they're two different things. So depending on what your goals are, I think that there's ways to engage with your listeners or your fans on a smaller scale, but I think that's totally special and awesome.

Brian Bosché:
Yeah. Well, thank you so much. This was incredible. I'm a huge podcast nerd so it was great to dive into this a little bit more.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
Yes. Equally huge podcast nerd, even if my paycheck did not rely on it. Yeah.

Brian Bosché:
I've always wanted to say this on a pod. I don't know if I've done it yet. So anything you want to plug? Do you have a podcast? I love the plugs at the end.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
Nothing that I need to plug. I am currently almost finished listening to 30 for 30 Podcasts, their most recent season, which just dropped. So I guess I'll plug my company. But it's such an incredible listen. It's called Heavy Metals, 30 for 30 Podcasts. Incredible reporting. Great story about USA gymnastics and the Karolyi empire. I have nothing to do with it. I did not produce it, I did not report it. But I am a huge fan.

Brian Bosché:
But a great listen.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
So yeah, I won't plug anything of my own, but I will plug them because I can't recommend it enough.

Brian Bosché:
All right. Thank you so much.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman:
Thank you so much, Brian.