“How to Become the Center of Influence Through Podcasting as a Couple” with Jenna Kim Jones and #AL of the Couple Friends Podcast
As part of my series of interviews about “5 things you need to know to create a “binge-able” podcast”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jenna Kim Jones and her husband #AL. They host a daily podcast called Couple Friends. JKJ and #AL are the married couple friends you really want to see but, like, you’re also kind of tired and maybe we can do it another time? They get you. And you get them. In their daily podcast they talk about nonsense, play games, and ramble on about life. They’ll never talk politics and best of all, they’ll never ask you to babysit their kids so they can go on date night.
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Can you tell us the “backstory” about why or how you got started as a podcaster?
A friend of mine, Alison Rosen, is a very successful podcaster. Her show, Alison Rosen is Your New Best Friend, features fantastic guests interviews (because Alison is a gifted interviewer). Years ago we became friends in New York City and then both ended up in Los Angeles around the same time. She invited me to be a guest on her podcast and that’s when I really fell in love with the medium. I was a guest on her show for almost four years and during that time decided to spread my wings and start my own show with my husband.
Can you share a story about the most interesting thing that has happened to you since you started podcasting?
Since we’ve started podcasting, we feel like we’ve made friends with so many people who would have never met in my other walk of life. As a comedian, so many of the podcast listeners will come out to my shows and I have the chance to meet them in person. It’s like meeting old friends! When we’ve shared personal things in our lives, good our bad, happy or sad, our listeners truly support us. It’s amazing!
Can you share a story about the biggest or funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
We’ve learned that podcasting is a balance of sharing personal life and then also talking about whatever story or topic we’ve chosen for the episode. When we started, we thought we had to pick the most interesting topics and get right to the point. But we’ve learned that the more we are ourselves and the more reality we share, the more listeners we bring to our show.
How long have you been podcasting and how many shows have you aired?
We podcasted for 3 years as #SorryNotSorry with Jenna Kim Jones, took a year hiatus and then jumped back into the podcast world again in early 2019 as the Couple Friends podcast. We realized when we were #SorryNotSorry, that so much in our life was changing and we had outgrown the name. After our hiatus, we came back as Couple Friends because that’s who we are! We’re the Couple Friends you never knew you needed.
What are the main takeaways or lessons you want your listeners to walk away with?
We want to bring the fun! The point of our show is to give you a break and take in a breath of fresh air. Life should be fun! And we hope to bring that to our listeners with each episode!
Check out the full interview in Tracy Hazzard’s Authority Magazine article about Jenna Kim Jones and #AL!
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Podcaster Influencers, Jenna Kim Jones and #AL of the Couple Friends Podcast share the best ways to:
1) Book Great Guests. Consistency. We’ve noticed that podcast listeners incorporate their favorite podcasts into their every day routine. Being consistent allows for them to do just that. If a listener knows your podcast comes out on a specific day and time, they are going to make it part of their regular lives. If they can’t depend on that, it’s much harder to keep them around.
2) Increase Listeners. Determine your target audience. The majority of podcasts focus on political ideology and celebrity interviews, that often contain R-rated content. We wanted to differentiate ourselves from that. We focus on adults who needed an enjoyable experience, where kids could be present without impact. So we focus on being lighthearted, uplifting, funny, with no politics and PG content but still enjoyable to the average 25–60 year old. This helps us keep a consistent message, brand and content creation strategy.
3) Produce in a Professional Way. Start simple, invest slowly. Entry level microphones and software these days can compete with some of the higher quality, more expensive equipment. The barrier of entry to podcasting is minimal due to free audio editing software and a significant number of recording microphones under $100. As you get more familiar with the process and what it takes to produce your podcast, you can then invest in higher quality equipment that will fit your podcast needs. To start podcasting, it can cost less than $150. When you’re ready to really build what you want, it can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
4) Encourage Engagement. Use social media and other tools to encourage and increase audience engagement — Our greatest social media tool is twitter. We use it to engage with our listeners daily. We’ve even created a regular “movie night” where podcast listeners vote on a movie. Then they gather on Twitter at a pre determined date and time, and “live tweet” a movie using a common hashtag. It has been very successful and best of all, a lot of fun.
5) Monetize. Actively pitch — because your podcast audience is invested in you, it’s a great idea to collect basic demographic information. That information can be used to approach companies, small and large, that are looking to advertise to the demographic that listen to your podcast. It is effective to write out a standard pitch that include those demographics when approaching companies. We show that our audience could be future customers of their product. It’s constantly asking the question, “What does my audience need?” and trying to find companies to align with that need.
What makes your podcast binge-listenable? What do you think makes your podcast unique from the others in your category? What do you think is special about you as a host, your guests, or the content itself?
Check out the full interview in Tracy Hazzard’s Authority Magazine article about Jenna Kim Jones and #AL!
