Transcript:
Julie Ackerson: [00:00:00] Hey, everyone. This is Julie. I'm the producer of the Destination Marketing Podcast. I want to invite you to listen to the very end for a funny blooper reel of me messing up this episode. So I hope you enjoy.
Adam Stoker: Hello, everyone. And welcome to another episode of the Destination Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Stoker. We've got a fun show for you today for the holidays. And I thought it was the perfect episode for us to do over Christmas time where hopefully everybody's trying to maybe take a step back, take a breather, take a break we’ve had quite the year in 2020. So I thought we'd do a little bit different type of content than maybe what you're used to hearing on the show. So I want to introduce our guest today. Her name is Julie Ackerson. Julie, welcome.
Julie Ackerson: [00:00:53] Hey everybody.
Adam Stoker: [00:00:54] So Julie is our new producer on the show, and I say new. She's actually been doing it. How long now Julie, have you been doing this?
Julie Ackerson: [00:01:01] I started beginning of March. So just over eight months.
Adam Stoker: [00:01:05] Eight months. So she's new to you, but not to me. And, Julie has been working on this show for eight months. We had another producer on the show. His name was Kyle. I think we did a short episode with Kyle introducing him. He was a wonderful asset for the show to kind of get it off the ground. And Julie has now taken it to the next level. So Julie, thanks for all you do.
Julie Ackerson: [00:01:27] Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Adam Stoker: [00:01:28] I thought it would be fun for our listeners to kind of learn who's behind the curtain, behind the scenes really doing all the important work. All I do is open my mouth. So I thought it would be fun to do that today.
Julie Ackerson: [00:01:40] Yeah, I'm excited to chat.
Adam Stoker: [00:01:42] Okay, great. So Julie, first of all, just give us a little bit of background of who you are and let us get to know you a little bit.
Julie Ackerson: [00:01:51] So I am, as Adam said, the podcast Producer of the Destination Marketing Podcast. I also produce all of the Destination Marketing Podcast network shows. So if you haven't heard of those, those were pretty awesome too. I grew up in Hebrew City, Utah, which is about 45 minutes from where Relic is located just down Provo Canyon. If you're from Utah and know where that is. So I currently go to Utah Valley University at the University in Orem, Utah. I study digital audio, which I really, really love. It has a very complex degree that covers a lot of principles concerning sound, which is kind of our podcast comes into play. So I help, record and edit and produce all of these podcasts.
I started editing podcast at the beginning of last year. I had been working on another job I was self-employed for a long time, and then I realized that I wanted something a little bit more structured. I wanted to kind of work for clients, which is what my degree has kind of been preparing me for. So I started editing this podcast for a group of moms in Spanish work. It was called the Midseason Moms Podcast. They're unfortunately they got busy. They're not still doing it, but it was super, super fun, and that was kind of my first taste at what podcasting really was. I hadn't ever listened to podcasts. I didn't understand the hype before then, and then I started editing this like, “Wow, it's really cool. This is awesome.” I edited a show for them every week for probably two or three months.
Adam Stoker: [00:03:26] So I got to ask you something about that show because I remember when we interviewed and you were telling me about that show when I knew I had to have you in our organization is when you said, “Yeah, they just send me this big raw audio file and they say, cut it down and make it sound good.” I was like, “Man if she could do that with four ladies, just kind of chat and shooting the breeze, she could do just about any podcast.”
Julie Ackerson: [00:03:48] Yeah, that one was tricky because when I first started, they had all of them on one track. And so I had to sort through who is who and split it all up and deal with every microphone’s individual problems, while only being able to edit one track. Whereas here on the Destination Marketing Podcast, every guest has their own tracks. So it's kind of easier to narrow in on those problems and fix them microphone by microphone instead of having to generalize your technical issues.
Adam Stoker: [00:04:18] Nice, nice. Okay. All right. Well, you as the producer of the show, know a lot of the questions that we like to ask. And I do feel like we've got to ask them of you as well. So, Julie, tell me, what is your dream destination?
Julie Ackerson: [00:04:34] So my dream destination? I would love to go to Iceland. I have never been out of the country. I've never even been on an airplane. I'm probably –
Adam Stoker: [00:04:41] You’ve never been on an airplane Julie?
Julie Ackerson: [00:04:44] I was a baby, we went to visit my grandma in California when I was 18 months old.
Adam Stoker: [00:04:49] Okay. We got to take care of that.
Julie Ackerson: [00:04:51] That was the last time I was on an airplane. So I'm probably the least well-traveled person here at Relic. It's just hard being in school. And I'm only 21 so I haven't had as many life experiences maybe a lot of the people you have on the show. So Iceland would be good.
Adam Stoker: [00:05:08] So tell me why. What about Iceland draws you in?
Julie Ackerson: [00:05:11] So I love hiking and backpacking. I would love to just take a backpack and backpack around Iceland. See it all. See all the beautiful, amazing things that it has to offer.
Adam Stoker: [00:05:23] Nice. Nice Okay, Iceland. Good answer. It's a popular answer recently on the show, right?
Julie Ackerson: [00:05:29] Yeah. I heard a lot.
Adam Stoker:: [00:05:30] Okay, tell me about your favorite trip you've been on. Obviously, you didn't fly there.
Julie Ackerson: [00:05:34] No. I didn't. We drove there. So earlier this year, a few friends of mine and I had planned to go to Las Vegas during spring break in March. Obviously, that didn't happen because of Coronavirus. So we ended up pushing her Airbnb into June, which actually ended up being perfect because that was right when Las Vegas reopened, and so we were able to -- our Airbnb ended up getting canceled while we're on our way there. I got a text when we're out outside of Las Vegas that like, “Hey, you can't stay here. We're sorry. Here's a refund.” And we're like, “Oh, no, what are we going to do?” But honestly, it was the perfect timing because all of these resorts on the strip in Las Vegas were begging people to come. They were, like, half capacity. And so we were able to stay at the Excalibur right on the strip instead of this Airbnb that we would have stayed at, which was kind of cool.
Adam Stoker: [00:06:28] That's awesome. So what you do in Vegas? What did you do while you’re there?
Julie Ackerson: [00:06:32] I'm not a very crazy person. We didn't do all the Vegas things, but we did all the other Vegas things if that makes sense.
Adam Stoker: [00:06:38] What are the other Vegas things, Julie?
Julie Ackerson: [00:06:40] So like walking down the strip, seeing the fountains at the Bellagio. Were able to get front-row seats. There was nobody on the strip it was crazy. It’s the perfect time to go if you don't want to do the typical Las Vegas things.
Adam Stoker: [00:06:55] Yeah, and without all those people there social distancing probably wasn't that hard.
Julie Ackerson: [00:07:00] We were 20ft away from anybody else. So that was a lot of fun.
Adam Stoker: [00:07:03] That's great. Well, good. Okay, those were good answers, Julie. I like that. Well, let's talk a little bit about the Destination Marketing Podcast specifically. And then I kind of want to get into some of these podcasts that we do for other destinations and talk a little bit about that process. So what have you found to be the most interesting part of producing the Destination Marketing Podcast? I mean, you hear opinions from people all over the industry, you hear advice. What do you feel stands out from what are some of the highlights of doing this show?
Julie Ackerson: [00:07:38] So it's interesting because before working for Relic, I didn't know anything about marketing, which is funny because it's an advertising agency. And so I've just been able to learn a lot about what the industry is. I remember when I started working, I was like, “What the heck is an RFP?” And now I'm like, “Oh, I know what I know what that is.” I'm starting to learn kind of all the lingo to learn really what makes this industry so unique and special. I also love it because I'm not very well-traveled, being able to hear about all these wonderful places that people have been that people work at and how passionate everyone is about where they live and where they work.
Adam Stoker: [00:08:16] I love it. Okay, all right. Tell me some of your favorite episodes that we've done.
Julie Ackerson: [00:08:21] So I think probably my favorite episode. And he might be listening to this. So shout out to Rob Wells. I could listen to Rob talk all day. He's actually one of our clients for the Destination Marketing Podcast network, which will probably talk about later, but I just really loved hearing everything he had to say. And he was so passionate about Beaufort, South Carolina which is where he's from.
Adam Stoker: [00:08:44] Yeah, that was a fun, fun episode. Yeah, okay. What else? Give me another one.
Julie Ackerson: [00:08:49] I also really like Darren Dunn's episode, and he might be listening to this as well. So hey, Darren.
Adam Stoker: [00:08:54] Let's just assume that everyone in the industry is listening.
Julie Ackerson: [00:08:56] Everyone in the industry is listening to the podcast. Yeah, so Darren Dunn, I always joked that in another life I'd be in data because I think it's so fascinating to kind of look at the effect that what you're doing has on numbers like, I think just watching those numbers go up and down like I love looking at analytics for the podcast just because I think it's so cool to kind of see your content but in kind of an analytical way.
Adam Stoker: [00:09:24] Yeah, I think that's one fun thing to mention you guys. Every month I get a report from Julie that's comprehensive, here's what happened on the show in Apple Podcasts. Here's what happened on Spotify, and it feels like as the podcast grows, there's more and more data available. It's almost like you unlock different data that these different podcast outlets have, and Julie compiles it all together for me, and we're actually able to look at that and understand, okay, what type of content or people finding most interesting? Or which shows are performing the best. And it really helps us to make the show better and better.
So kind of a fun thing that that Julie does for us. I love that Darren Dunn was one of your favorite episodes because of how much you like to dive into the data.
Julie Ackerson: [00:10:11] Yeah, I like it a lot. And when I first started, I remember we just had audio boom numbers we just had here's how many numbers you had per month. Here's kind of where they're from. No specifics, but some kind of general stuff. And then I realized that I could look at all the data from Apple Podcast was the first one that I started to dive into and that you could see exactly how many devices listen to an episode. So not just the individual streams, but how many people are consistently listening to episodes and how long they're listening to the exact point when they stop listening. I think that's so cool, because you can go in and listen and be like, “Okay, did a promo cause us to lose four people at that spot or just various other things that might cause people to stop listening to an episode and we can go in there?” And now we can fix those things and we've been seeing more and more consistent listenership instead of kind of a drop-off in the middle.
Adam Stoker: [00:11:04] Yeah, yeah, that's good. I like that. So what do you feel like since you started looking at those analytics, what are some of the interesting things that you've maybe learned from that that you said we need to do this differently.
Julie Ackerson: [00:11:19] So we haven't done this in a while. But we were doing three promos per episode for a while, and I was noticing that we were losing a few people in the beginning, and we're losing a few people in the middle, which I thought was super interesting. Especially right as the promos were new, we weren't having that happen. But as those have been played a few times, I was noticing that like, “Hey, these are causing us to lose a few people,” which I thought was interesting.
Adam Stoker: [00:11:45] Yeah, yeah, so we got to make sure that those promos aren't too overwhelming.
Julie Ackerson: [00:11:49] Yeah, I think fresh content is so important. Just repeating things too many times. I feel like can get kind of dry and old, and people are knowing what to expect. And they're like, “Oh, this again.”
Adam Stoker: [00:12:01] Okay, good stuff. Well, let's talk a little bit. Wait, let's back up a little bit. Let's talk about was there any other episodes that stood out to you that you wanted to mention?
Julie Ackerson: [00:12:13] There's been so many, I think so. I was working on my portfolio for school the other day and I had to count. I think it's like 70 episodes that I've edited since March, which is a lot of episodes.
Adam Stoker: [00:12:23] Just so everybody understands that is a lot of unnecessarily hearing Adam's voice. And so poor Julie. She probably hears me talk more than anyone.
Julie Ackerson: [00:12:33] I probably do. I probably heard more of what you have to say than anybody else in this office. Yeah, nothing else stands out for me at the moment. But there's just been so much content, it's hard to narrow it down.
Adam Stoker: [00:12:47] All kind of bleeds together to a little bit if you're the one editing everything. Well, let's talk about the Destination Marketing Podcast Network. What have you found interesting in producing those shows for different destinations?
Julie Ackerson: [00:13:00] So when we first started that we started that also, I think back in March back when I got hired on Adam was like, “This is also a project that we're going to start up.” And I was like, “Okay, cool.” And I had no idea it entailed. It was like a podcast for destinations like I've never heard of this before. This is super unique. So I thought it was really cool, and we started with Beaufort, South Carolina. Rob Wells was our first guest, and I was so nervous because I had edited and produced all these Destination Marketing Podcast episodes. I had no idea how to transition from that format into this format that would help listeners explore a destination just through audio and just hearing somebody describe a place and making somebody else want to go there. How is this going to work? I have no idea.
And I shouldn't have been worried because Rob was awesome. And he's just so passionate about where he lives. He went into detail, describing all these things you can do, all the wonderful places you could eat. I remember for a while we would do a recipe every week that you could do at home to help you kind of taste what you Beaufort, South Carolina taste like. And I was like, “I don't know the places had a taste. This is really cool.” So we've done about 20 episodes for them, and it's been really, really fun to kind of explore this place without being there, but also wanting to go there.
Adam Stoker: [00:14:26] Yeah, very fun. Okay, what about? I know that I mean, we've done several, but the Laredo podcast is another fun one, right? The Holah Laredo. What stands out from that one?
Julie Ackerson: [00:14:38] So Laredo is really cool because it's such a unique destination. It has a lot of culture and heritage within a city that is more than the city. If that makes sense. So Laredo is Laredo. But Laredo is also this kind of mix of American culture and Mexican culture, and you can find all sorts of different things in one place. I actually have -- I got my associate’s degree in humanities and so which is way far off from audio. I know. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do, but I love learning about culture and history and people and really what makes those people who they are. And so the thing about Laredo is all of that culture kind of comes together, and you can really see its effect on people over time.
Adam Stoker: [00:15:25] I love it. Yeah, for somebody who's fascinated by culture, I think you've found one of the perfect podcast for you, right?
Julie Ackerson: [00:15:31] Yeah, that one’s awesome. I love that one.
Adam Stoker: [00:15:33] Well, Julie, our listeners get invited to be on podcasts, and some of them are considering starting their own. A lot of people are afraid to hear their own voice or don't want to hear their own voice. I know that it's always hard for me to play these back and actually listen to them myself. So what advice would you give somebody that's going to be a guest on a show? How can they make your job as the editor or producer easier? Give us a little bit of what people can do to be a good podcast guest or host?
Julie Ackerson: [00:16:06] Well, what I would say is, if you're scared of hearing your own voice, just remember that I have to edit my own voice. So I'm going to be listening to my own voice and picking it apart in fixing all the little tiny things for hours and hours. So I totally get it not wanting to listen to your own voice, I would say just making sure you have a good microphone. A lot of people record straight into their computer, and MacBooks are good at this, but most other computers are not. So making sure you have good external mic, you can get USB mics on Amazon for $20 or $30. I can almost guarantee they're going to be better than whatever's inside of your computer.
I would also say to make sure you're wearing headphones while you're recording, because sometimes we get people who are just listening to Adam talk through their computer and that gets recorded back onto their track. And then I have to edit that out every time, and that takes a long time. So that would be another piece of advice. I would also say, if you have an external mic to get a pop filter, it will change your life. They're amazing. They save me so much time in post.
Adam Stoker: [00:17:09] It will change the editor’s life. It might not change your life –
Julie Ackerson: [00:17:11] It will change the editor’s life, it’ll make you feel cool because it makes you feel official and you feel important with this little black filter in front of your face. They're like $5 on Amazon, and it really makes a huge difference. So if you're wanting to start your own podcast, especially so record consistently and a lot then definitely invest in one of those. I could ramble off a whole bunch of expensive microphones too if you would like me to, but I would say to just email me if you have questions about that.
Adam Stoker: [00:17:40] Julie, how can people email you if they have questions? What's your contact info?
Julie Ackerson: [00:17:44] So you can even me at julie@relicagency.com.
Adam Stoker: [00:17:48] Awesome. Julie, it's been a blast to have you on the show and thank you for producing 70 episodes of the show.
Julie Ackerson: [00:17:53] Yes, that’s a lot of episodes.
Adam Stoker: [00:17:55] And many more to come.
Julie Ackerson: [00:17:56] Yeah, for sure.
Adam Stoker: [00:17:58] Okay, well, thanks again. Appreciate your time.
Julie Ackerson: [00:18:00] Yep, any time.
Adam Stoker: [00:18:00] Okay, everybody. This has been another fun episode of the Destination Marketing Podcast. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed today's content, please leave us a rating or a review and otherwise, we'll talk to you next week.
[Blooper Reel]
Julie Ackerson: [00:18:19] I'm going to cut this part out.
Adam Stoker: [00:18:24] I don't even know if you should.
Julie Ackerson: [00:18:26] Yeah. Well, if I choose to leave it in that’s… No, I won't leave it. So earlier… This is hard.
Adam Stoker: [00:18:38] I know. I got to do a blooper reel of this episode.
Julie Ackerson: [00:18:42] Okay. Blooper reel. Destination Marketing Podcast… Format… I can't remember. So we've done... Oh… I'm just going to say that again because I can edit it out. This is awesome. I have control.
[End of Transcript]
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