From broadcaster to in-house podcaster – Phil Sylvester embraces podcasting in his role at World Nomads

After 25 years as a broadcaster, including five years as an executive producer at 2GB, Phil Sylvester moved to a communications role at World Nomads.

Recently, he’s turned his radio experience into producing a fast-paced travel podcast as a form of content marketing for the travel insurance and lifestyle company.

Unlike a lot of podcasts, which involve two talking heads, World Nomads Podcast involves several topics and interviews in each episode.

In contrast to, say, ABC’s Conversations with Richard Fidler, which many podcasters try to emulate, Sylvester says World Nomads Podcast tries to achieve “as many little touch points as we can in the amount of time that it takes for somebody to do a reasonable commute.”

Co-hosted by Sylvester and former radio breakfast announcer Kim Napier, Sylvester says they “take the three-hour-long afternoon talkback radio show I used to produce and do it in 45 minutes.”

Planning for each episode of World Nomads is done well in advance. “We can pre-record interviews weeks in advance if somebody is available.”

They work from the editorial content calendar created for the World Nomads website, based on the destinations the team will feature each month.

“[We] kind of know what are the World Nomadsy-type angles on each destination that we want to talk about,” he says.

If they come across great “talent” talking about, say, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, they can “pre-record that and just put it away in the bank and we’ll edit it up and compile it later.” Unlike radio, he says, they have an advantage with the fact it’s not live.

Audio quality is important to Sylvester. From the beginning, he wanted it to sound like an ABC broadcast with proper recording equipment and good quality microphones.

As a form of content marketing, Sylvester says a good podcast should have a dose of humour and be interesting and engaging. It should answer the questions your prospective customers are asking, he insists.

Chris Ashmore is Head of Podcast Partnerships at BE Media Production.