Matters

We are all time poor, but we’re rich in expertise and compelling service offerings, so why not use your time smartly by installing your voice where your market plays?

Yes, podcasts are anything but new, but they are a mature content type every business should consider as part of their overall marketing and PR strategy.

Why? Well, for one thing, today, the barrier to entry, cost-wise, makes podcast production affordable if carefully managed.

Where to start

Seek out a trustworthy full-service podcast agency to create successful programming based on a concept that’s steered by a content plan and podcast strategy.

The amount of information (products, services, topical industry-related themes etc.) you wish to share over time will determine the frequency at which you post. What’s a non-negotiable, however, is frequency consistency.

Whether that’s once a week, twice a month, once a month or once a quarter, stay true to your content calendar. If content is king, then consistency is right alongside it as queen. Do that, and you have a perfect podcast marriage.

Next, decide on what content you are comfortable with (interview-based, narrative or story-driven, or a mixture of the two). I can even take existing written case studies and white papers and turn them into synthetic voice narratives.

Having worked in the content marketing space for over two decades, I have acquired the expertise and experience to create, host and help amplify your work and interrogate, improve and evolve it.

My bottom line is that I love nothing more than helping unlock and promote people, products, businesses and innovation. What I love equally is producing and publishing podcasts.

Besides offering data-rich feedback, podcasts are a content type that, at minimal cost, can deliver impressive engagement.

With little or no exposure and the opportunity to start building a legacy archive that can be shared across all of your owned media platforms, why not run a short trial with me? Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

One size does not fit all

Diving in and establishing a profile can be daunting and expensive, but it needn’t be.

If you already have a hosting platform, great. If not, I can help set these up for you.

These are the hosting platforms I use:

YouTube Studio account set-up cost to you: R1 500 – once-off

Spotify and Apple Music account set-up  cost to you: R1 500– once-off

Base fee per podcast recording, pre and post-production (including capturing, editing, 2 x reverts and uploading to YouTube Studio, Spotify and Apple Music – R2 500 per episode *

*This fee may change once the scope of work has been assessed, and based on frequency, tiered discounts may apply.

If you’d like to know more and chat through the options available, drop me an email: [email protected]

Jeremy Loops has been Trading Change since 2014, and along with his commitment and obvious talent, he’s attracted an army of followers.

In this, my first ever interview with the roving raconteur, recorded on the eve of his highly anticipated third album, Hear You Got Love, Jeremy waxes lyrical about his journey to here and his ongoing investment in paying it forward.

2018’s Critical as Water album cemented his reputation as an artist worthy of international acclaim with sold-out shows in the US, UK, and Europe.

Four years in the making, Jeremy’s done anything but rest on his laurels to deliver a stellar set of new songs, all a further notch up or three from where his last album left off.

Yes, it took a while to make, but Jeremy’s third album is well worth the wait. Featuring collaborations with Ladysmith Black Mambazo (“This Town”) and Ed Sheeran (“Better Together”) and heavyweight producers famous for their work with the likes of Adele, Lewis Capaldi and George Ezra, expect to hear pure sunshine in song.

On the 12th of July 2000, I had the honour of sitting with Tanana’s, Wired to the Floor and a plethora of other collaborations’ pianist and composer Paul Hanmer.  

Playola was the album we were aiming to unpack in our time together. Apologies as always for the ambient distraction. This cassette recording is raw and entirely unedited if only to give you a sense of the moment we shared.  

A critical thread in the rich jazz fabric of South Africa, this album, and everything else Paul's recorded before and since, each captures a space in time. His gift remains to create a place to claim as your own.  #playola #Paulhanmer #tananas #wiredtothefloor #abrandnewworld

Yes, Matters caters to a broad church, yet this one is a little different from what I usually share.

In going through my many cassette interviews, many incorrectly labelled, I stumbled upon an interview I hold very dearly.

In mid-2007, after two years of negotiating, I was finally afforded an audience with the late great Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu. This is it, an unedited insight into a man who shaped modern-day South Africa for the better.

In December 1999, I had the privilege to chat to Steve Louw on the eve of his first Greatest Hits album, highlighting his first decade as Big Sky and a solo artist.

Fast forward 22-odd years and Steve continues to record brilliant records with his lifelong legendary South African producer, Kevin Shirley.

On the eve of his 2021 album, Headlight Dreams’ 2022 South African Music Awards (SAMA) nomination and his soon-to-be-released follow-up Thunder and Rain.

If you don’t know his work, this interview will give insight into what made him tick and how his journey played out.

In 1998, Birmingham-born reggae supergroup UB40 decided to drop Labour of Love III, the band’s twelfth and third covers album, released on DEP International.

To celebrate the highly anticipated covers collection, I got on the phone with percussionist Norman Hassan to share what motivated the band’s selection of classic tracks.

I had the opportunity to speak to Jason Ross, he of grunge rock’s Seven Mary Three “Cumbersome” fame. We collided headway into the release of their Atlantic debut, RockCrown.

Jason speaks perspective, doing what they did best. They could write good songs; commercial and critical acclaim was the intangible they ignored; they focused on making music that mattered to them.

They started out as friends; Seven Mary Three was something they created, a baby, if you will. They had no real strategy, and at the stage I spoke to Jason, the future was anything but certain and arguably became a burden that messed with their ability to be even greater than they were in the late 1990s.

Recorded over a near-year-long period that saw Pantera take The Great Southern Trendkill on the road, I got the rare privilege to speak to the late-great founding member of Pantera, Vinnie Paul, about recording their first live release, Official Live: 101 Proof.  Live is where the magic happens; tell me otherwise…

Thirty years into his career, since his first 1976 hit, Johnny Clegg was very much in control of his destiny when I had another rare opportunity to speak to this late-great icon in late 2006.

Celebrating but still pointing fault at legacy politics, Johnny spoke to the past but always looked forward. The juxtapositions are jarring, but it shows a level of grit that made him an extraordinary narrator.

One Life was the album, 17 tracks long, filled with Zulu chorus that took more than a year to produce. Mandisa was front and centre; I urge you to listen to this interview to the end. There are some great surprises in here.

And now for something completely different.  

When I spoke to Kåre Wanscher in 1997, one of the four people who made up Michael Learns To Rock (MLTR), new territories like South Africa were hearing their infectious pop for the very first time. 

They became one of this county’s most significant late 90s, early nulls, favourites.

After this interview, multiple tours to the country followed, and album sales went through the roof.  

 I was fortunate enough to tour with the band during my time at EMI and followed their career for a good few years. A lovely bunch of humans that reminded me that all that pop is essential, as it was for the groups that came before them and since.