Ep. 57: Behind the Scenes: Ace Stone, Marketing Detective

Lacy Boggs 0:00
I didn’t feel like I had anything unique enough to bring to an interview style podcast just to start one up, so I was waiting for that idea to hit. And then last year, mid summer ish, I had this thought like I should put on a radio play.

Meg Casebolt 0:17
You’re listening to social slowdown a podcast for entrepreneurs and micro businesses looking for sustainable marketing strategies without being dependent on social media. Social media is a double edged sword. It’s a wonderful way to stay connected. But it also can feel like an addictive obligation. And it’s even more complex for businesses, your audience might be right there, but you’ve got to fight with algorithms to maybe be seen by them. So whether you want to abandon social media altogether, or you just want to take a month off, it’s possible to have a thriving business without being dependent on social media. This podcast is all about finding creative, sustainable ways to engage with your audience without needing to lip sync, send a cold DMS, run ads or be available 24/7. Let’s get started. Hello, Lacey, and welcome back for our third fourth episode together one of the we’re recording for something else and repurpose it. So we’ll call it Third, the third very intentional episode, the social slowdown podcast. How are you doing?

Lacy Boggs 1:19
I’m doing great. How are you?

Meg Casebolt 1:21
I’m doing great. So we are here today, because I had you on super early in the run of the podcast. Like almost a year ago, it was episode nine. I just looked it up. And in that episode, you mentioned that you were going to be starting pulling together like a fiction podcast about business and marketing. And people have listened to that episode. And in the episode I said, Well, we’ll have to follow up with you and hear how it goes. And people have reached out and been like, how did it go? Yes. So you don’t need to have listened to episode nine in order to enjoy this episode. But if you are curious about that, you’re welcome to go back. So a stone marketing detective. Tell me where this idea came from? Because I am just like so intrigued.

Lacy Boggs 2:13
Yeah, yeah. Well, so to backup half a step before that. I had a podcast a long time ago. Now it was probably like 20. Yes, you got this right. Without the app he has, he got this. And I did it with two other women. And it was great. It was fine. All good things. It was a pretty standard interview podcast, we rotated as hosts and then did a roundtable. And we did it for a season however many I think there was like 20 Something episodes. And we just weren’t seeing the ROI in any way that we wanted to see. And so we we lovingly let it go. And then, since then, I’ve always kind of wanted to do a podcast again. But I felt like I needed a different spin. I needed some kind of a hook. Right? I didn’t feel like I had anything unique enough to bring to an interview style podcast, just to just to start one up. So I was waiting for that idea to hit. And then last year, mid summer ish. I don’t even remember why it happened. But I had this thought like I should put on a radio play. For anybody who doesn’t know me my branding, since like, 2015 has been very new art film noir detective agency is the brand. And so it actually made perfect sense to me in my little brain that I should do like a classic 1940s style radio play.

Meg Casebolt 3:36
I kind of like I imagine it coming out of one of those, like round top like fireside chats,

Lacy Boggs 3:43
ya know, was of a big television that

Meg Casebolt 3:48
was at war of the world was a radio show. And people thought that the world like tuned in late about the world was actually being invaded by Russia. A vibe and feel to it.

Lacy Boggs 4:00
Yeah, yeah. Like, you know, doing your own sound effects with the coconut. So that’s exactly what I was going for. So I sat down and I, I wrote the first episode. And it just flowed. It just came out of me like really easily. And so then I was like, Oh, this might be a thing. Yeah, and so that’s where it came from. I mean, we can talk a little bit more about how I decided to get it produced. But yeah, that’s where the the idea was just kind of like, it came to me from playing around with the ideas of like 1940s noir detective agency branding and what I wanted to say, or how I wanted to do a pocket like I needed to do something different for me.

Meg Casebolt 4:43
Right. And as a writer, like you’re probably always trying different styles and techniques and stuff. Did you have I know you were journalists, like do you have screenwriting experience too? Or was that something new that you were exploring?

Lacy Boggs 4:55
I do actually have screenwriting experience. So my degree is in cell I’m from my BA is in moving image arts. And so part of that was screenwriting as well. And writing for radio is actually very, a little bit different. Because with visual mediums you can rely on what they see. And so like, you can have whole scenes in a movie where nobody talks, right? That writing for radio, nobody can see anything. So you have to have, it was really interesting because I realized some of the conceits of like the old radio, like the detective always has a sidekick, or a plucky young girl who helps him out, right? And it’s because he needs somebody to monologue to like, if it’s just the detective, then he’s just talking to himself. So we need somebody to ask, what’s that? You know, or what was going on? And different things like that. So it was an it was an interesting process for sure.

Meg Casebolt 5:48
All right, you’ve written novels too. So you kind of have this idea of how to have dialogue makes sense. But in the novels you can write in description is the exactly exclusively dialogue. So it probably was very much like, like an innovative creative project for you.

Lacy Boggs 6:02
Yeah, it’s funny, because a lot of my first drafts for novels tend to be very dialogue heavy. So that part wasn’t too hard for me. But yeah, figuring out like, how do you set the stage? How do you describe what’s going on? How do you describe an action scene with just a few fun powers?

Meg Casebolt 6:23
And then once your head like, how many episodes did you have drafted before you were like, Oh, this actually is a thing I want to do like this has legs?

Lacy Boggs 6:31
Yeah, well, actually. So before I got too far into it, what I did was I called up a friend of mine, his name is Joe KU janati. And he and I were best man and matron of honor at a wedding. That’s how we met through our friends. And he’s big in the radio and theater and voice acting world in Dallas, which is where I’m from. And so I was like, I have this wacky idea, like, Could we get on a call and just talk about this? And so he and I got on a call. And I was like, does this have legs? Like, how hard would it be to produce and I knew he had done podcasts as well, more like roundtable style. He’s very geeky. He gets he’s done several, like movie review podcasts and things like that. But I also knew he produced a really fun web series, the name of which is going to escape me about a comic book shop. I’ll find it for you, because it’s really fun. But yeah, what

Meg Casebolt 7:25
was my God for? Sure.

Lacy Boggs 7:27
Yeah, I knew he had done like, weird, wacky ideas like this. And so I was like, What do you think? Does it have legs? And he’s like, I think it’s great. And so that was when I was like, Alright, this is a thing that’s happening. Like, I kind of had to get an outside opinion, like, how hard would this be to?

Meg Casebolt 7:44
Yeah, especially when it’s like, you know, you can write a screenplay, and you can you’ve written 1000s of blog posts over the years and produced a podcast, but like, this is on a scale that is completely different from what you’ve been doing, you know, like, the, the production quality that you wanted is not actually the coconuts on the table.

Lacy Boggs 8:03
Exactly. Yeah. Right? And how would you even do that? If I wanted coconuts on the table? Like, where would you source coconut? Like, I don’t even know, you know,

Meg Casebolt 8:11
they don’t have enough in Denver.

Lacy Boggs 8:14
So yeah, that became a thing. So to answer your question, eventually, like, as I was writing the story, I knew I wanted to keep the episodes short. And when you’re writing a screenplay, or a script, the formatting of it. If you do it, right, a one page is about a minute of read time or screen time. And so I was keeping them to about 10 pages a piece. So 10 minutes airtime. And so I ended up with eight episodes to complete the story arc.

Meg Casebolt 8:43
And then the production process. So you knew you wanted to work with Joe? Yeah, you know, you wanted to do some of the voice work yourself. But you also brought in a whole team have like, are these professional actors that were hired as part of this production process with this live? Or Did everyone have their lines separately? Like, how did the actual recording process go?

Lacy Boggs 9:03
Yeah, so I actually did not want to be a stone originally. And Joe told me I had to be he was like, this is your baby, this is your business. You’ve got to be ace. I was like, No, I want you to cast it like cast somebody good. Like you convinced me and so I hired him to do the directing. And he Thankfully, this was part of my like, quote, unquote, genius and hiring him has a really great network of people, mostly in Dallas, through his theater work, and radio work and voiceover acting work. And so he actually did the hard work of casting the rest of the cast, and I’d have to check but I think we have about 10 to 12 actors besides me in the whole thing, and so he cast everybody, and then because they’re all in Texas, and I’m here in Colorado, most of the recording was done virtually so he he that setup times with each of the actors. So we actually all recorded our pieces sort of in a vacuum, so to speak. So I was the only one who had the benefit of having heard the other I went last he did that on purpose. And

Meg Casebolt 10:15
I had the biggest one, you were the protagonist, right? Yeah.

Lacy Boggs 10:18
But I had the benefit. Also, because I’m the least the least accomplished actress, let’s say, the least experience. I could hear the other. I had the benefit of hearing the other actors and their takes and how they did it. And let me just tell you, that was horrifying. Because I was like, Oh my God, they’re all so good. Like, I’m gonna lead idiot. Yeah, but he recorded everything. I think of

Meg Casebolt 10:44
him. Here’s where the imposter complex shows up, like, sit here and be like, this is your baby. You did it. But you know, they’re even when it’s something that you’ve created. You’ve written you’re guiding you’re leading, there’s still that feeling of like, but I’m not good

Lacy Boggs 10:58
enough. Right? Joe was really sweet to me. I’m gonna pretend this is true. Probably. It is. I don’t know. He said that every single actor at the end was like, was that good enough? Are you sure that was? Yeah, so I got really lucky. They’re all sorts of what we would call professional amateurs. So some of these people do radio, some of them do like local, Dallas Community Theater. Some of them do. Voiceover acting. And we got really lucky everybody volunteered to do it. Because they loved really,

Meg Casebolt 11:29
yeah. Oh, we that was gonna be next question was like, if you’re gonna hire 810 12 people to do this work? How much are you paying them? How much? Are you paying? Joe? Like, what is the cost of producing all of this?

Lacy Boggs 11:42
Yeah, so we got very lucky with that. If we do when we do I want to do another season. When we do another season, I’m going to budget a day rate for the actor’s, which is between like $50.02 $100, depending on how long their day actually is, and how, you know, famous how

Meg Casebolt 11:59
many lines they get. If they only have three lines, they don’t get a full day. Right? But if they’re like, you know, pretty significant character, they’re gonna get paid well for it.

Lacy Boggs 12:09
Exactly, exactly. And I would like to, I would very much like to pay them well, because they’re also like, it was so fun listening to everybody. They’re also amazing and sort of campy and fantastic. Yeah. And so, Joe, and I came to an agreement. You know, I asked him, How much would you charge me to do this, and he told me a number. And I was like, wow, I don’t have that much in the budget. And so we negotiated back and forth, and he came down a bit, and we landed on I paid him $5,000 for the project, which is way less than he deserved. But he was kind enough to do it for me. And actually, we can go into this again in a minute. But like I’ve, I’ve got a client that we’re doing this for, and I raised his rates, because he definitely deserved more for the time and effort he put in. But so that was my major outlay. Because he was able to get the actors to donate their time and their talents. And then I did pay. I paid for little things. Like I bought the rights to the music, I bought the rights to a couple of sound effects that were important. And then I paid an editor. And I think he came in at just under $500. I found him on Upwork of all places, and he did a great job.

Meg Casebolt 13:22
That’s not bad for eight episodes with the amount of different tracks that you have going in the sound effects like I was more for the editing, to

Lacy Boggs 13:30
he did a fantastic job. I think I got very, very lucky. I kept saying I was like, Are you sure this is enough? He’s like, Yeah, it’s totally easy. I’m like, okay. But like you did a really fantastic

Meg Casebolt 13:42
podcast producers, finding something like this that feels like fictional, but also educational. Like, it’s not something that they are probably finding a lot of, they’re probably getting a lot of like interviews that are kind of boring to so giving him something totally exciting to do, you know, probably made it a bit well,

Lacy Boggs 14:01
and he didn’t build himself as a podcast editor. He he built himself on Upwork as an audio designer, and an audio editor. And that was actually what I looked for because I wanted somebody who had experience layering the music and the sound effects because that’s that’s a different skill set than just cutting dialogue,

Meg Casebolt 14:18
cutting people’s arms and ahhs and exhorting them, like having multiple tracks where you have to have different sound levels and stuff. Yeah. Okay. So we have I’m kind of trying to go in order. So we have this script, and then you’re producing it, and then you have the audio. How did you go about like, promoting it? And here’s where like social slowdown sort of comes into because I know that you you had some social media behind it, but to a great extent, this is a huge marketing output for you. That’s not social based. It’s like a totally different format. So tell me about how you got people to actually like find out about it and listen to it.

Lacy Boggs 14:58
Yeah, so I do have some some So for the show, I actually started an Instagram account and a tic tock account specifically for a stone, which didn’t do great. But I liked the idea of having an account specifically for this project. And then the other thing I did was obviously promoted on my regular social media accounts. And so beyond that, I asked people to be on a kind of a street team for me. So I asked people to volunteer to share it, they got early access to listen. And then as soon as it dropped, I asked them to review it, leave stars, you know, all that good stuff and share it on their socials. But really, the most important thing that I did was traditional PR. So I actually I have a friend here in Boulder area, who does PR mostly for food and beverage. And when I told her about the idea, she was like, we have to get this out there. And so she and I struck up a trade agreement for her team to promote this. And so we sent out, they sent out two press releases one right when it right when it dropped, or I guess it may be a few days before it was technically live. And then one a week or so before the last episode. And it was amazing to me, the very first one, they sent out the first email they sent out. The podcast was technically live on Hello audio, which is our host. But it wasn’t in like Apple podcasts and places like that yet.

Meg Casebolt 16:29
So that was like a private podcast feed that you were doing to be able to give people access. Exactly. We’re on the street team for advanced.

Lacy Boggs 16:35
Exactly. And so the day that the first pitch went out, we had 450 downloads. So a lot of people were interested in it for sure. Yeah. And then I ended up getting four or five media placements. Really nice ones to most of them on on all of them online. Not like traditional media, like a newspaper or anything like that. But she pitched us to a lot of local outlets. So I was in like shout out Colorado and something else that was local, I can’t remember. And then we were in several like online magazines like authority magazine. And managing editor magazine picked us out and a couple other places. And then it was picked up in like, what’s it called podcast news or something like that. There’s a newsletter. And then I got a couple of additional podcast interviews about it as well. So so like other podcasters interviewing me about a stone, so that really helped drive a lot of listens, I believe in the beginning. And from those we actually did really well. The first month we were live I had to look up I’m so so funny. I didn’t know what made like what’s good for what’s average, what’s I don’t know. And so I looked up some stats and according to the ones I looked up, like getting 3500 downloads in the first month puts you in the top 10% of all podcast launches ever and we we got there. We did that. Congratulation, thank you we hit the top 100 on Apple in comedy, comedy fiction and we hit I was number one in New Zealand for a little while for comedy fiction. Thanks so much. Millie Blackwell.

Unknown Speaker 18:25
Well, everyone the movie like half of you feel a download.

Lacy Boggs 18:28
But it was really interesting to watch. And it’s been very interesting, too, because our downloads have stayed relatively consistent. So the last I said there’s only eight episodes and so a lot of podcasts to to build their numbers have. They rely on that they put out new shows every week. Right? And that gets you new, but we have so the last episode dropped in August, and we’ve maintained around 500 downloads a month since then, with no new informations no new episodes. So I feel like that’s pretty good.

Meg Casebolt 19:03
Yeah, especially, you know, people are probably binging the entire thing, too, because it is so short, you can listen to the entire season in like an hour and a half. And for most of us we also don’t listen at what next time it’s like 1.4

Lacy Boggs 19:20
We sound hilarious. 1.7.

Meg Casebolt 19:26
Or there are those people who like listen to it at point five and you sound kind of drunk. Yeah. Then I sound like a base. Do you know like how new people are finding you even after that initial push? Or is it you’re just relying on word of mouth at this point.

Lacy Boggs 19:42
I’m relying on word of mouth and I’m also I do a fair amount of podcast interviews generally. And so I try to mention it every time and I have landed some additional interviews specifically about a stone since then. And then the third thing we did was I actually joined a podcast network work for marketing podcasts, and they have AD drops. So everybody in the in the network will get a drop. Occasionally that’s like, Hey, do you know that a stone marketing detective is also on the marketing? Whatever network. So there is some advertising, I forgot to say I also did take out an ad in podcast magazine, the very first month, they were running a special so if you could take out an ad for 99 bucks, and I was like, let’s seems worth it. So I did. And I do believe that gave me a big bump in downloads when it first came out.

Meg Casebolt 20:33
And so we’re seeing downloads, we’re seeing, you know, people talking about it, sharing about it press releases, and the entire I mean, overall, the intention of this is not just let’s let Lacey run loose, I’m be creative. It’s also like, how do I actually get clients from this? How do we make money from this? Like all of this, these eight episodes, were all essentially a story that were sponsored by your content marketing agency? Yes. So and every single one of them has like a clear call to action of how you can help people and you know, it’s a very obvious plug in the midst of this storytelling. So are you finding that people are no seeking you out and having have listened to all this information? Like, how’s this turning into good marketing for your agency?

Lacy Boggs 21:21
Yeah. So I had to go into this knowing that it probably wasn’t going to have a super direct ROI. Like I had to go into this knowing that it was going to be top of mind advertising, which is like, getting my name out there, having the brand associated with something fun having people think, Oh, when I think fun marketing, I think Lacey Boggs and the content are actually right. So that was kind of my attitude going into it. I also have a value in my business that I say joy is a valid success measure. And so the amount of joy that this brought me was off the charts, like, I couldn’t have paid for $5,000 worth of therapy or

Meg Casebolt 22:08
thing that would have brought me this much $5,000 on massages, I wouldn’t probably.

Lacy Boggs 22:15
But I mean, like this brought me so much joy. So as we were like coming up on it, we’re about to launch it, I sort of made an internal deal with myself. Like, if I make $0 off of this, I’m still happy because it brought me so much happiness to produce and to put this out into the world. But the answer is, we have had one woman come to us specifically from the podcast, maybe more, but she’s the only one that specifically said, I heard your podcast, I knew I had to work with you. And what was really fascinating was, she wanted to do the same thing. She literally got on the call was like I want I want what you have, I want what you’re having. So we signed her up. And as I alluded to Joe is in it with me. And so we are producing a fictionalized podcast for her. And it’s actually gonna be a private podcast for her. But she has a really fun signature talk she gives called Murder by meetings. And so we are dramatizing each of the murders.

Meg Casebolt 23:13
It’s like a clue. But

Lacy Boggs 23:15
it’s 100% corporate agenda, exactly what it is. And so it’s pretty great. And we’re having a lot of fun with that. And so she came in, and it’s a $22,000 project. So for you know, about $5,500 ish. In investment. I’ve now, you know, made 22k off the back of it so far.

Meg Casebolt 23:34
There’s your 4x ROI, we want to do the math, you know, and, and one thing that you and I’ve talked about previously on a different episode of the podcast, I just looked it up. It’s episode 18 Is the idea of like invisible audiences. Yes, people who you have the brand awareness, they’re following you. They’ve heard about you and like you were saying, like, it’s top of mind marketing, but down the road in three years and five years, they might be ready to work with you. But doing this put you on their radar. Yeah. And maybe they didn’t join your email list. And maybe they’re not following you on social and maybe they binged all eight episodes in an hour, and they’re gonna forget about it until they’re ready to make a move. Right? So it’s with projects like this that don’t have I mean, you do have the data, you know, how many downloads you got, you know, what’s working, you can prove you validated that does in fact, turn into future business. But there’s also a lot of that kind of just like Goodwill. Yeah, of putting out something that people are enjoying, you know? Yes.

Lacy Boggs 24:35
And I think there’s, like I said, there’s a value in putting out something you enjoy doing as well, like, I have so many clients come to me who were like, oh, blogging is such a drudgery or you know, whatever it is, like, I hate posting on Facebook or all these things, and it’s like, then don’t do it. Like find something else. That brings you joy.

Meg Casebolt 24:55
You have to do something, but you don’t have to do everything you know. Exactly,

Lacy Boggs 24:58
exactly. And I’m not also saying that everybody should go out and do something wacky, like a fiction podcast where their business. But like finding the thing that is truly going to be fun for you to produce, whatever that is, it makes a huge difference in how you show up in your own marketing, when you’re having a good time.

Meg Casebolt 25:22
We just did an episode about NaNoWriMo. And how like, you can take some of those lessons from nano about like doing something fun, and like making a process out of it, and then applying that some of that back to your business, but like bringing joy into what it is that you’re spending your time doing, it’s so important for me, and I can see how that would also be relevant to you. So one of the things we talked about on that episode was like the the time limitations, the scarcity of like, there’s only so many things you can do in a day. And if you choose to do one thing, you have to kind of let go of something else, like the marginal cost of pursuing something new, especially if you don’t know if there is going to be an ROI, but you’re chasing the joy, like what did you have to let go of, in order to produce something that brought you this joy and brought you these clients?

Lacy Boggs 26:13
That’s a good question. I mean,

Meg Casebolt 26:16
existentially when you have an agency, so yeah, like, you could probably just outsource and delegate did things to the team that maybe wouldn’t have been able to. So there’s an expense that goes into that. That’s like, like, Sure, not direct and indirect. There’s the word for that direct indirect expense to that.

Lacy Boggs 26:31
Sure. I was gonna say the thing I had to give up was, like, fear of looking silly. Like, that was the biggest thing was like being afraid that everybody’s gonna be like, I really had this fear, like, I’m gonna put this out, and nobody’s gonna think it’s funny. Like, It’s only funny to me, nobody else is gonna laugh, nobody else is going to think it’s clever. They’re gonna be like, what? You know, nobody’s gonna get it. That was really my big fear. In terms of what did I have to give up like, timewise I think you’re right, I did delegate a lot like Joe did a lot of the heavy lifting, it probably took me I would say it took me an hour, hour and a half to write each script. So you know, that’s a good 16 to 20 hours of time that I put in there. It took I’m trying to think it took at least four hours for us to record my sections. So like actually reading out and doing the different takes. And then I did a lot of my own, like, I created videos for little little reels and tiktoks and stuff for social media, I created my own graphics and all that stuff. So there was definitely time there. But it all felt like play. Because I was having so much fun doing it. A lot of it I did sort of like after hours while I was watching TV or something, you know, I would I would be playing in Canva making these tiktoks At the same time, but like Joe did a lot of the heavy lifting. I mean, hours and hours and hours of recording went into this for him and scheduling the people and getting everybody. And then you know, our editor guy, he was so fast. I mean, he turned all eight episodes around in under a week. So that was incredible. Yeah. So in terms of time, it wasn’t a huge, huge time suck. For me. I think the biggest times that this is so funny was like creating I wanted to make YouTube videos for it with captions, closed captions. And the software I found to do that took freakin forever. And so I actually delegated that to my assistant. I’m like, I’m sorry, can you do this? And she’s like, of course, like I was like, feel free to watch TV while you’re because it just took so long. But yeah, so she did that for me. But mostly I did it my the other stuff myself.

Meg Casebolt 28:48
And like you probably could have taken that same amount of time and written 12 blog posts and the time that it took you to write 12 screenplays you know, is there a you know, correlation? Or like is there a way to measure which one’s better for you? Probably not.

Lacy Boggs 29:04
No, I think the podcast has a bigger impact overall than it’s a bigger production piece right than a blog post it has a bigger hook a bigger it’s a bigger sport makes a bigger splash

Meg Casebolt 29:17
there’s something different and interesting and exciting about it. Like you could have taken all of the lessons from those podcast episodes and turned them into like educational blog posts that people could Google and read and that could have helped your business too but like wouldn’t have been as memorable right wouldn’t have been this shareable right? Probably not people are

Lacy Boggs 29:35
gonna remember Brad the bro and Rex hack Shaw and these characters I’ve created you cannot forget though. I want to ask because anybody mentioned your your ad your quote unquote add from the show.

Meg Casebolt 29:49
Nobody has no such a bummer now hoping that somebody would say Oh, I heard I heard you on that maybe that’ll happen. But I think also, you know, but the like neuroscience behind adult education and any education, but especially adult education is like, we remember stories, we don’t remember facts in quite the same way that we remember stories. And so the fact that you’re able to both educate your audience in a way that they are enjoying and giving them the stories to remember what the heck it is that you’re talking about, like, that’s gonna have long term ramifications and impact outside of the work that you’re doing. It’s almost like, I don’t want to be like, This is a public service that sort of is,

Lacy Boggs 30:37
well, and it’s very different people learn in different ways, right? We know that for a fact. So there’s some people who are gonna listen to this and be like, this is stupid, I don’t like it, I want to read a white paper, about marketing, you know what I mean? Or they’re just going to think I can’t learn anything from this or something like that. But then there’s gonna be a whole other segment of people that are like, This is amazing. And I learned more about marketing from this than I ever would learn from our white, boring old white paper, you know?

Meg Casebolt 31:06
Yeah. And recognizing also that, you know, as a society and generationally, our attention spans are going down. And the fact that people can learn while being entertained, there’s a value to that that isn’t, like measurable,

Lacy Boggs 31:24
right, you know, yeah. And being able to like podcasting as a difference. It has a different reach than other types of social media or media in general, because I can be in your ear. Right now, there’s somebody listening to this, who is doing the dishes, or wash walking the dog, or folding laundry or whatever, exercising, when they normally wouldn’t be consuming any kind of media that you and I would consider content marketing, right. And so there’s somebody listening to a stone while they’re doing the same things. And so, you know, I’m reaching those people in a different place in a different time. There’s pros and cons to that, but it’s a nice way to diversify what I’m doing. Yeah,

Meg Casebolt 32:08
and be able to talk to people for longer, that’s the thing that I love about podcasts is you can have a longer attention span from people that’s maybe a little less focused, but you have a longer runway in which to sort of tell a story or get to get to a deeper conversation than, you know, I don’t want to have a YouTube video, that’s 45 minutes long, because no one’s gonna want you to for that long, they’re gonna have it running in the background as if it is a pod. But not just a conversation. So I think it’s a really interesting form of media for just this just this purpose. Now, for season two, is there any aside from paying the the voice actors? Is there anything else that you’re like, I would love to do this differently? Whether it’s, you know, the production or the screens? And the stories or the, the the marketing of it? Yeah, what have you learned from it that you can apply to a second season,

Lacy Boggs 33:01
I definitely would like to have a sponsor. For the second season, I have somebody in mind that I’m going to approach. And if you’ve listened to any of it, you know that our that our style of ads are like in universe, if that makes sense. So like, Joe is the announcer, and he reads them out like an old timey 1940s era radio announcer you know. And so like we wrote, I wrote funny ads, because we didn’t have a sponsor other than content direction agency. So you know, our sponsors are the Oxford comma. And you know, and I gave one to Meg. So love it first search. I think you’re in Episode Four. I’d have to go check.

Meg Casebolt 33:37
I think that’s right. Yeah, yeah.

Lacy Boggs 33:39
So just for fun, you know, to have other people in there, but I would like a sponsor, and I would like to have them the ads still sound like in universe to the radio play. And I found out that I’ve done every, like I’ve booked every like podcasting best practice there is in terms of like, the show doesn’t lend itself to add drop ins, there’s nowhere to put them. It would sound weird to have ads at the beginning or the end. So that’s strange. It doesn’t lend itself to joining an ad network where anybody you know, like, like the ad network, the network, I joined, I actually don’t participate in the ads because they have great ads. It’d be good for my listeners, like from base camp and LinkedIn and things like that. But it would sound so weird, and it would take people out of the story so much that I’ve chosen not to do it. So I’ve basically broken all the rules for back. That’s fine, whatever. So So the idea being that because again, it would probably be a limited run a limited number of episodes, that we would get one sponsor for the whole season. I think it makes more sense for everybody. Other things I would like to do. Well, in terms of the story, I already have an idea. Don’t hold me to this because I haven’t written it yet but about AI Writing Tools. And like the attack of the AI robots or something, maybe go a little Flash Gordon ask, instead of the first one was Dick Tracy like I actually went and listened to and read old Dick Tracy scripts to inspire me for this one. So the second one might be Flash Gordon, I’m not really sure a little more sci fi will definitely have some recurring characters. And in terms of what I would love to do, I wanted to do it for this one. And it didn’t make sense. It didn’t really work out. When I came up with this idea you asked me like, did you have to all get together to record it? I really thought we would all get in the Zoom Room, and do almost like a table read like reading or reading our life that would be fun to record and like put out exactly. So I think for the second one, even if we still do it, where everybody’s doing their actual takes individually. I would love to do a Zoom Room table read with these people who are so I have to get over my own. Like you said imposter complex did show up. But I think it would be so much fun. And I think the marketing would be incredible. I would also love to do a blooper reel. Some of the bloopers were amazing. So funny. So yeah, those kinds of things, I think would be great. But I would probably do a lot of the things that

Meg Casebolt 36:19
might be really interesting as like, if you were to do a Patreon or something like that, yes, if you decided to go that direction and say you guys can come you know, that would be the supporters, you can come watch it live, they can come watch it and just like do it as a zoom, not like a room where anyone can participate. Zoom, essentially, with all those people and that way they could read it. And they could hear it from each other before recording because I’m sure that was also a part of it is like they may have the whole scripts but they don’t get to hear each other. So being able to do that prior to production would be really interesting for them and might make their performances be a little bit peppier, a little bit more like understanding how everything fits together, right in the context of the entire production.

Lacy Boggs 37:00
I think Joe did an amazing job. I think it’s probably due to hit. I haven’t asked him this, but I think it’s probably due to his experience doing voiceover work. He Dubs, he does the English dubs for a bunch of animes, which is so fun and so amazing. But so the way I understand it, voiceover acting, you’re usually by yourself in a booth. You don’t hear what the other people are doing, you know. And so that’s probably how he could make it sound because it sounds great. It sounds so good the way we’re all. You know, it just works. And that’s amazing to me that we could all be recorded in completely different times and locations and everything. And then all sounds so good.

Meg Casebolt 37:39
As somebody who was on the stage, I feel like I need other people’s energy. So they get work. But if you have a director there who’s like, Okay, try it this way. Try it this way. And he kind of has the cuts in his head going,

Lacy Boggs 37:48
Yes, that’s exactly what it was. And I mean, bless his heart. He was so patient with me. I will tell you a funny story. When we first were starting, he asked if I could do like if you’ve watched very many 40s movies. There’s a there’s that mid atlantic accent that’s fake, right? That like fake Katharine Hepburn. She had that very strange, Mid Atlantic accent. And then there’s also this patter, that characters had a lot like my favorite one of my favorite 1940s era movies is called his gal Friday. And it’s Cary Grant, and I can’t remember the woman, but they have this incredible banter that goes back and forth. And it’s so fast. And so one point Joe was asking me, he’s like, he sent me a clip from a movie. He’s like, can you do this? And I tried it, and I recorded I won’t even I wouldn’t even try it here. And I recorded it for, like, Nope, we’re not gonna do that. It’s like, okay, so I’m kind of the straight man in the show to everybody else’s. Everybody else has these wonderful, very, almost cartoonish in the, in the perfect way, you know, voices, and I’m pretty much the straight man.

Meg Casebolt 39:00
We need to have a straight man, especially when like, when you’re dealing with a lot of characters who are kind of zany. Like, you need to have an an Perkin to have the rest of the mix. Yes, you know, you need somebody to let you need a gym helper to look at the camera and be like, are you seeing it sounds like you need to have that person and having that person as your kind of protagonist and being able to explore the zany personalities while grounding and I think is really interesting, too. So, you know, like you said, you wrote it first and then they were like, Okay, now you’re a stone, you’re casting yourself. Do you think you’ll write a stone differently knowing that you’re gonna have to perform at this time?

Lacy Boggs 39:38
That’s a good question. I mean, he and I made the decision before I finished the script. So he’d seen the first episode. And he was like, No, you have to be ace. So I think I did go into it a little bit. One thing I will do is read it out loud when I’m writing, because there were a couple places where I wrote these incredibly long, ridiculous paragraphs and I My god dammit who wrote this because it just because it was hard to do in one day, you know what I mean? It was hard to run out and get.

Meg Casebolt 40:12
So I will definitely be on film, but it’s not. Yeah, it’s not being in front of the camera. Any other final thoughts or takeaways that you got from this project.

Lacy Boggs 40:23
Um, it’s just it’s been a real reminder in how to continue to market, an asset that you have. So a lot of times, we put so much effort into the launch of a thing, whether it’s a book, or in my case, this podcast or whatever. And then I think there’s diminishing returns, right, and we forget to talk about it, we forget to market it. I have a book that’s been out since 2016. And I very rarely talk about

Meg Casebolt 40:57
a lot of a lot of filmmaking failed.

Lacy Boggs 40:59
making sales, I’ve sold almost 10,000 copies since 2016, and 90. Almost never market it. And so because I don’t have new episodes coming out regularly at all, ever, until I do another season, it’s been a really interesting exercise in remembering that my audience not every instead of new people, not everybody’s listened to it. Yeah, not everybody knows it exists, right? And so like remembering to continue to market the thing, because it’s so valuable, I can’t just let it sit. That feels really sad. To just like, let it go, even though you know, it’s it had its moment of launch or whatever. I am trying really hard to be very mindful about how do I keep it going? How do I keep people listening to it. We’re doing feed drops for the holidays, which is really fun. It’s where I didn’t even know this was a thing until I got into this. It’s where somebody else’s podcast agrees to play an episode of your podcast on their feed. And so a stone is perfect for that, because you can play one episode or you can do the whole thing. And I’ve been offering it to people like if you if you don’t want to record like a Thanksgiving episode, or a Christmas episode, or whatever, but you don’t want to go dark drop in an episode of a stone. And I’ve had a few people take me up on it. Our first one went up for Thanksgiving week. And I just thought it was so much fun. Such a great idea. Okay, well,

Meg Casebolt 42:26
we’ll do that. Yeah, you just episode after whatever this one is. I don’t know if that because we’ve already had the next month planned out. But we’ll whatever our next episode is here, we will just drop in a stone one. So if you guys are listening to this, you know, in real time, you’ll have to wait. But otherwise, you can just lead on to the next one. And then obviously, we’ll have a link and all of that. So that way you can go over and listen to the full season including Episode Four sponsored by love at first search. And thank you so much for coming on and just kind of talking about like, new, different fun ways to market that like you have no idea if they’re going to work but why the hell not? Yeah. Sometimes we have to just chase what’s fun and chase what’s what makes us excited and not necessarily hold so tight to like, will this turn into money right away? You know,

Lacy Boggs 43:15
I have zero regrets. And I really feel like I would have zero regrets. Even if this wonderful woman hadn’t come and wanted us to produce her podcast. I think it’s been such a fun experience. I would have zero regrets regardless.

Meg Casebolt 43:28
Well, thank you so much for coming on today. I really appreciate all these insights, frankly, for you. Thank

Lacy Boggs 43:32
you for letting me talk about this fun, crazy thing I did.

Meg Casebolt 43:37
Thank you so much for listening to the social slowdown podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe or come on over to social slowdown.com and sign up for our email list so you never miss an episode. We’d also love if you could write a review to help other small business owners find the show you can head over to social slowdown.com/review Or grab that link in our show notes for easy access. We’ll be back soon with more tips to help you market your business without being beholden to social media Talk to you then

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