Podcasts for Marketing Leaders: June 2021

Here's our monthly list of recent podcast episodes marketers should listen to. And not because they’re about marketing (most of them aren’t)

In a way, you can say that chefs and accountants should also follow closely social and business trends. But with marketers – and especially anyone in relationship marketing – being on top of these happenings and their undercurrents is incredibly critical for them to really shine in their jobs.

But finding what content to consume is time consuming, and if you spent 20 or 30 minutes listening to the wrong podcast episode, the lost is double.

That’s why we compile this list for you, marketers and relationship marketers in particular, every month – a bunch of podcast episodes from the past month that will help you become better marketers. No, not because they’re full of marketing insight. Most of them are not even about marketing. But because they’re packed with human, societal, and business insights. Which, in the hands of the right marketer, these are basically marketing insights.

Marketing

iOS15 is Hiding Email Open Rates. What this Means for Your eCommerce Business (15 mins)
eCommerce Badassery, June 22

Email open rates are going away, so what now? Is this the email apocalypse?
Tune in to hear what this update means for your eCommerce business, how to prepare your email account for iOS15 and how this might impact your email marketing strategy moving forward.
Spoiler alert: it’s not as bad as you think
What You’ll Learn

  • Is iOS15 going to kill email marketing?
  • How to prepare for iOS15 and what steps you should be taking right now
  • How to manage your email marketing once iOS15 is in place

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Ecommerce AI (21 mins)
The Digital Marketing Podcast, June 23

Did you know that with tailored AI powered recommendations, your online store might increase sales by up to 30%? Learn what AI could be doing to transform customer preferences into better outcomes for your customers and you. To be successful, retailers must personalise their customer’s experiences. To make this happen, knowing the customer’s preferences, intent and context are key. Learn how you can leverage machine learning techniques to personalise and improve the shopping experience for your customers. Are you still using rules-based recommendations to power your online store recommendations? Are you missing out on more intuitive analysis that could dynamically improve the personalisation you offer? Are you able to auto catalogue your new products, or are they all catalogued manually still? Can you analyse sentiment in reviews at scale? Explore what to expect and what’s possible with AI in the e-commerce space. We also explore where AI may go next and highlight some of the disruptive challenges that all-knowing AI may highlight. Useful Links If you would like to know more about this technology, CartUp AI has produced a helpful guide to complement this interview.

Work

Will Work-from-Home Work Forever? (48 mins)
Freakonomics Radio, June 2

The pandemic may be winding down, but that doesn’t mean we’ll return to full-time commuting and packed office buildings. The greatest accidental experiment in the history of labor has lessons to teach us about productivity, flexibility, and even reversing the brain drain. But don’t buy another dozen pairs of sweatpants just yet.

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Why Is Everyone Quitting? (18 mins)
The Journal, June 22

Americans are quitting their jobs at record rates. But why? WSJ’s Lauren Weber dives into the reasons that Americans have decided to walk away from their careers during a pandemic and breaks down what it means for the economy. Plus, two quitters open up about their decision.

Business

Shopify’s retail renaissance (35 mins)
Business Casual, June 14

Harley Finkelstein, President of Shopify, joins us to discuss how the e-commerce platform behind many of your favorite stores has democratized entrepreneurship and sparked a digital shift in retail. Harley breaks down Shopify’s role in the e-commerce boom, diving into how consumers’ values inform their purchases, why retail isn’t dead, and the importance of curation and personalization for a brand. We had to talk a bit about Rihanna moving Fenty Beauty to Shopify, too.

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Why stuff is getting more expensive (24 mins)
Today, Explained, June 24

Vox’s Emily Stewart explains how scared you should be of inflation.

Life

Digital dictatorship (60 mins)
Vox Conversations, June 10

The internet was first conceived as a tool to promote free expression, to foster and enliven debate, and to strengthen democratic ideals. But it didn’t quite work out that way. In this episode, Vox’s Zack Beauchamp talks with Steven Feldstein, author of The Rise of Digital Repression, about how governing regimes use digital technology to repress their citizens; the threats posed by surveillance, disinformation, and censorship; and how democracies can backslide into authoritarianism.
Host: Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp), Senior Correspondent, Vox
Guest: Steven Feldstein (@SteveJFeldstein), Author; senior fellow, Carnegie Endowment

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From Public Shaming To Cancel Culture (25 mins)
One the Media, June 16

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve taken on some of the battles in the ongoing culture war. The granddaddy of them all is cancel culture. Michael Hobbes, co-host of the podcast You’re Wrong About, told us that there isn’t a situation that has been labeled a cancellation that couldn’t benefit from a more accurate word to describe what had happened. So and so was fired…such and such was met with disagreement on twitter. Cancel need not apply.

He also explained on his own podcast with Sarah Marshall that there were a few pivotal events along the way that led to the term cancel culture becoming the moral panic that it is today. One of them was the 2015 release of Jon Ronson’s book “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed.” A series of case studies of people who were canceled before we started using that word.

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Whembley Sewell, editor-in-chief, them (29 mins)
Skimm’d from the Couch, June 2

“The more informed you are, the more you read, the more you actually engage with the issues…makes you that much better of a friend or a part of someone’s community.”

Whembley Sewell is the youngest editor at a Condé Nast publication. And she’s the EIC of its newest publication, them. And when you’re the youngest at the newest, cue: pressure. But Whembley told us she doesn’t let the challenges of the job get to her because she stays focused on them’s mission of celebrating the stories and voices of the LGBTQ+ community.

In this episode, Whembley shares how to create meaningful relationships with an audience, her advice for fostering an inclusive work culture, and how she balances being collaborative with giving her team freedom.

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The Kardashi-end (29 mins)
Today, Explained, June  11

Over 14 years and 20 seasons of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” the show rewrote the rules of reality TV, social media, marketing, and popular culture. Next up? Politics.