BTS: Our exact process for launching this new podcast

By Brad Luttrell / Prologue Founder, CEO

Prologue's first fully produced podcast is live! 

JammNation's new show, The Songwriter: The Life Behind the Lyric went live early this morning, launching a deep, heartbreaking conversation with rising songwriting star, Colby Acuff. 

It's not often you get a raw behind the look at how a show came to be. Here's some behind the scenes:

First, JammNation is an app that's bringing songwriters closer to their fans, and giving fans a shot at early access to tickets, merch and unique experiences. I started working with them in the summer of 2024. We created this show to be the nucleus for the company's content flywheel. 

The founding of a show

This show came about by me working with the founder of JammNation, Rob Hillier, on his content strategy. I kept encouraging Rob to share more of his story as he was building JammNation. The problem: Rob's not a big "look at me" guy. He's a super humble farmer who is building this company, but wasn't too keen on creating videos of himself. 

"What if do a podcast so you're just talking to songwriters? And it's not about you?"

Rob said he could be into that. 

Jacob and I got to work, looking at the market and what was out there. There were a lot of shows that interview musicians, but a lot of them were creating pedestrian content that just scratched the surface of what you'd expect: life on the road, favorite songs on the last album, how you met your producer. 

No one was going all that deep.

We decided to create a show that'd un-peel the story behind the songs that our audience—the real fans—loved. This show would connect with the fans in a similar way the song you love does, because this show would unveil WHY that lyric you love came to be. 

We toiled with the name for weeks, and just kept coming back to "The Songwriter." We had quite a few other takes, but this name was one we could own fairly quickly, and nothing explained better what we wanted to do.

We also decided out of the gate that we would not be doing the Zoom-style recorded shows that have become so common in the post-pandemic era. We were going to film this with real cameras, in person, raw and real. 


Backstage with our first guest, Colby Acuff

Logistics

Raw. Real. In person. This can really quickly translate to big budget. But we're working with a startup. We didn't have big budget. 

Now that we had the show conceived, we had to figure out how we'd film it without dropping $50K on season one. Rob was sponsoring a music festival in just a few months, so that seemed to be our best shot at getting a lot of artists in one place, which could reduce our cost significantly. 

We went all in on filming at the Laurel Cove Music Festival but the challenge here was this festival is held on top of a mountain that has challenging logistics to say the least. No wifi. No cell service. No real green room to film in. Limited parking. Sound bleed that wasn't very conducive to filming intimate conversations. And a multi-stage footprint that winds through hillsides. 

We figured it out though. The festival (shout out to Jon Grace, Bell County's Tourism Director) helped us secure filming in the Pine Mountain State Park Lodge, which worked out great. We hired Sam Tucker (Tucker Creative) to help film and edit the shows, and we got to work. 

(That's Sam on the right filming some additional b-roll)

Prologue handled all of the scheduling and production tasks, which for artists who are on a tight timeline and trying to make their call time, was a lot. We knew we'd have a few cancellations, and I anticipated as many as 30% of our artists may no show. In the end, I think we had one true no show and it wasn't their fault (truly impressive). 

Filming the shows was fun, then the editing process kicked off the next week. Jacob Bozarth, Prologue's podcast strategist and another producer for this show, got to work on the sound branding. We hired singer songwriter Emily Jamerson to help us record the intro vocals. I worked with her through a few studio sessions, and we ended up with something that just fit the show so well. 

Launching the show

Our team launched the show this morning, and seeing it go live has been rewarding for us. We chose Colby for our first episode because he's one of the fastest rising stars who joined us on the show. We knew he'd make a splash. 

A lot goes into making a show. Above was the narrative version, but this is what it actually looks like:

Concept & Positioning

• Research competitive shows, find our white space.
• Do podcast SEO research to find opportunities for scale other shows are missing.

• Defined show’s unique angle: intimate, confessional songwriter stories.

• Find the core positioning (we positioned it as discovery + superfan engagement, not industry fluff).

• Wrote one-sheeter and teaser language (“life behind the lyric”).

Host & Brand Fit

• Create the show format. (Shows that fail to do this meander with no goal, strategy, or thought of what they really want to be when they grow up.)
• Designed the show's logo, branding and episode artwork. 

• Coach our host on how to run the format consistently (truthfully this job was easy—Rob is naturally an incredible host).

• Built the show's messaging around his country roots and entrepreneurial spirit.

Production Setup

• Hired film crew / edit team (Tucker Creative out of Lexington, Ky).

• Secured recording location at Laurel Cove Music Festival.

• Setup scheduling software, planned 4 shoot days, including coordinating between interviews and shooting b-roll of artists performances. 

• Prepared artist research and high level questions to guide interviews.

• Built editing workflow for polished episodes.

Marketing & Promotion

• Created one-sheeter to recruit artists as guests. 

• Drafted teaser post for trailer.

• Drafted episode launch posts.

• Helped JammNation find a way to cut their own clips for social (was not in scope—we sometimes handle).

Artist Outreach & Recruitment

• Coordinated artist booking through festival lineup.

• Framed participation as more than promo: evergreen content + fan connection. Secured 85% of our target guests (high for a first season, new show with no social proof). 

Additional Podcast SEO Research for Launch

• Researched podcast naming conventions to ensure “The Songwriter” had searchability.

• Identified high-value keywords.

• Built metadata strategy: descriptive titles, keyword-rich episode summaries, and strong show notes for search visibility.

Strategic Alignment with JammNation

• Ensured podcast content reinforces JammNation’s positioning as the fan engagement platform.

• Used podcast as proof of concept for long-form storytelling and fan connection.

• Designed content to double as evergreen artist assets, continually driving streams and loyalty.

Watch the first episode to see how we did

You can find the first episode of the Songwriter on YouTube, Spotify or Apple. If you're into music, please give the show a follow. And heck, if you like the show, we'd love to see a rating! 

Podcasts are content secret weapons

The brands we're working with on podcasts know one thing: Podcasts are secret weapons for content. 

It's not just about the episode. It starts with the episode, but the episode becomes a blog, social shorts, evergreen content on YouTube, sales material, social proof, social posts, and sometimes, marketing wild fire. 

If you're interested in learning more about how a podcast could help your brand, check out our podcast services then just reach out.