Cultivating Leads: How The Reading Culture Drove Beanstack’s Engagement
Contents
When brands nail the right podcast concept and content for their audience, the creative project can support the business by building up a brand on multiple platforms. Podcasts can become a major touch point for lead generation, as Beanstack found out.
Beanstack is a reading motivation app that uses competition, recognition, and proven gamification principles to grow community reading culture. It allows users, mainly libraries and schools, to create and manage reading programs that motivate participants to read more by offering gamified rewards and community goals.
Their co-founder and host, Jordan Lloyd Bookey, wanted to create a podcast to connect their clients more deeply with the authors they love.
“My goal was to create a podcast that complemented our mission at Beanstack, which at its core is about encouraging people, especially students, to read more. And to cultivate a stronger culture and love of reading in our schools and communities.”-Jordan Lloyd Bookey, co-founder of Beanstack and host of The Reading Culture
Right from the start Beanstack chose to work with Lower Street from conceptualization to launch and beyond. We helped Beanstack create the foundation, we were there by their side through production and worked on promoting the podcast through paid campaigns and PR.
Together we refined the concept, high-quality content, and promotional strategies to position Beanstack as a thought leader in the industry. The teamwork with Lower Street even got The Reading Culture featured in CNN and The New York Times Book Review.
With the podcast’s great success, they were able to use The Reading Culture as a primary marketing tool in lead generation, deepening connections with authors, and potential clients alike.
Creating the Concept
Creating the concept for The Reading Culture podcast took a few shifts before Beanstack and Lower Street settled on an idea they loved.
Initially, Beanstack considered featuring librarians, who are the primary audience and customers, to share their stories. They also thought about alternating these episodes with interviews of authors. After a few test recordings with librarians, however, Jordan and Lower Street producers realized that this format didn't quite align with the brand vision.
There were already excellent podcasts by librarians discussing library tips and tricks. To differentiate Beanstack and The Reading Culture, they needed a unique angle that would still appeal to their audience. Lower Street encouraged them to poll their target listeners. When they did, they saw a strong interest in hearing in-depth interviews with beloved authors, focusing on their life stories and lesser-known details.
“I love when podcasts have certain beats that you can rely on and when they have a story arc within them. We aspired to do that in the beginning, and with Lower Street it really came together in The Reading Culture.”
The Reading Culture was launched, a brand podcast combining storytelling with inspirational author interviews, creating an engaging narrative arc within each episode. This approach not only resonated with Beanstack’s audience but also aligned with their mission to foster a culture of reading.
In order to pull this off, guest selection was an important part of the production process.
In selecting guests for The Reading Culture Podcast, Jordan looked for diverse authors and illustrators with a rich array of experiences and multiple books to their name. This combination would allow her to explore their career and journey as authors, creating a natural story arc in the episode.
Using A Podcast to Embody Brand Values
The Reading Culture podcast helped boost Beanstack’s brand awareness and leadership positioning, by further highlighting the company’s core values. It further added a point of reference for connecting with clients, and potential future clients.
A brand podcast can be the single most important touchpoint with your customers. It gives you the opportunity to showcase your brand values, your expertise, and connect at a personal level. When your audience spends dozens of hours per year with your brand show, they are more inclined to seek you out when they are ready to buy.
“Inbound leads come to us and tell us they heard the podcast, other’s mention it in a discovery call. So with The Reading Culture, we are building up another pathway to Beanstack in addition to creating content just for our clients.”
The Reading Culture’s reach has proven to extend well beyond the original clients of Beanstack, reaching new listeners and attracting new leads.
From the start, Beanstack aimed for the podcast to maintain its independent creative integrity, aligning it with brand values while not explicitly crafting it as a marketing tool. The idea was that if our team could help produce something remarkable, it could naturally evolve into a marketing asset in time.
“The podcast is really an asset and it helps us build goodwill with our brand. I hear from a lot of people we work with that they love listening to The Reading Culture and as a result, they feel a stronger sense of pride in working with Beanstack.”
This approach paid off, and now the podcast has become a key part of brand communication. The Reading Culture is featured on Beanstack’s website and integrated into larger marketing channels.
Outcome
Over 300k downloads to date
3,990 hours consumed per month on Apple Podcasts alone
#1 in Books, #1 in Arts, and #30 in All Podcasts on Apple Podcasts
Featured in CNN, The New York Times Book Review, Podcast Delivery, PocketCasts, and Amazon Music.
Thanks to promotional and PR campaigns across major news outlets and podcast-focused platforms, the Lower Street Team helped The Reading Culture reach their target audience. We were also able to get them featured in publications like CNN, as well as in curated podcast lists on PocketCasts and Amazon Music.
"The Lower Street team was really helpful in sharing effective ways to communicate with our guests and their publicists. From before an episode airs to during and after, they provided great strategies to ensure our guests shared the episodes on their platforms, which was very helpful to us."
Our promotional campaigns were niched down to find exactly the right audience - this meant featuring campaigns on the New York Time’s The Book Review Podcast. This outlet proved to be a great source for new listeners and aligned Beanstack with one of the most popular podcasts among avid readers.
The combination of great content for a targeted audience, and promotional strategies helped The Reading Culture hit the top of the charts on Apple Podcasts. Hitting #1 in Books and Arts had an excellent impact on The Reading Culture and, by extension, Beanstack.
It was influential in attracting more high-profile guests. Being able to show off their position at the top of the charts provided instant credibility and has opened doors to conversations with prominent authors and industry leaders.
This success has created a "bandwagon effect," the podcast's ranking generated excitement and pride among the existing audience, who often share their enthusiasm. This recognition not only attracts new listeners but also strengthens the loyalty and engagement of the current audience.
“When you do something very well, or hit number one, more people want to be a part of it. Suddenly I'll hear from clients or people in our network saying they're excited to be a part of something that is number one. It helps build on itself in terms of audience but also the dedication of the audience that you already have. They feel like, ‘I was listening to this before it was at the top’ The excitement is contagious in this way.”
Emerging as a Leader in the Industry
Investors were also impressed by the achievement of reaching the top of the charts; it helped them view the podcast as a distinct and valuable asset, showcasing Beanstack’s growth through creative avenues.
Investors were able to see that there is value in being positioned as a thought leader, and that podcasting really establishes that position.
“It's tough with podcasts because you really, want to see number one, you want to see all the downloads, and that's the natural thing to really focus on. But I have learned through Lower Street that there's a whole other emphasis, which is, a dedication to your listenership and to their ongoing and deepening engagement.”
Growth numbers and qualitative feedback is a delicate balance when judging the success of a podcast. It’s important to highlight numbers for external perspectives, but when it comes down to it it’s all about focusing on offering lots of value for your audience.
"The Audience Development team at Lower Street have been fantastic thought partners and mentors, helping us understand what matters in podcast measurement. They taught us that it's not just about getting more ears but figuring out how to keep those ears listening. Their insights were invaluable in creating a feedback loop between our marketing team and podcast content."
Lower Street’s audience development team monitored analytics to see what performed best with The Reading Culture’s content. Beyond monitoring, they advised on campaigns identifying where to promote the podcast for the best results. To test the water and reach The Reading Culture’s goals, the team used a strategic approach mixing different style ads across different platforms.
"What I really appreciate about the audience development team is that when we laid out goals around downloads and building an audience, they were excellent in achieving that. When we plateaued, they stepped up and always had creative new strategies. We learned so much from their experiments and had great success."
The team also engaged in PR campaigns to spread the word about Beanstack’s The Reading Culture. This won the podcast a spot in top media names like CNN and The New York Times Book Review. PR efforts also brought The Reading Culture to editorial highlights on PocketCasts, and Amazon Music.
Listener Loyalty
One of the most important achievements of The Reading Culture’s success has been their loyal audience. Listeners don’t just tune in to one or two episodes. The average listener has consumed dozens of hours of the podcast yearly.
At the heart of it all, this is what makes the podcast such a valuable marketing asset for Beanstack, it is their longest touchpoint with customers.
“It took us some time to figure out exactly how we wanted to use this medium. Many people come to the idea of a podcast thinking they just want one and it will be valuable, which it is, but it's important to have a clear purpose. For us, it was about creating something unique and appealing to our clients that aligned with our core values. Now that we've established our podcast, we're focused on deepening the relationship with our listeners and speaking more directly to our client base."
Author
Steven Bonnard
Head of Marketing
Hi, I'm Steven. I'm a globe-trotter who loves running long distances and listening to podcasts, especially from the news, politics and fantasy categories.
