THEY are listened to in 47 countries, even though they have kept their content resolutely British.

Mark Masters and Ian Rhodes are on a mission to tell businesses how they can better promote themselves.

But their weekly podcast, Marketing Homebrew, aims to avoid some of the buzzwords that characterise the relatively new industry of digital marketing.

The pair recently recorded their podcast in front of an audience for the first time, at the offices of Steele Raymond solicitors on Bournemouth’s Richmond Hill.

Instead of talk about search engine optimisation, clicks and followers, Marketing Homebrew’s emphasis is on encouraging businesses to tell their own unique stories. Listeners are urged to be useful to their customers and to share the things they believe in.

The podcast, downloaded around 1,500 times a month, purports to come from “the cupboard under the stairs”, and each episode begins with Mark bursting into a song without too much fidelity to the tune.

“It was just two individuals thinking, let’s give this a go, we’ll learn as we go along,” says Ian. “Let’s see if we can build something here.”

It started in February 2015, only a couple of months after the pair had met for the first time.

Mark, who runs the ID Group in Poole, and Ian, who runs Brand Less Ordinary in Cheshire, had come across each other on Twitter and discovered they had similar ideas about online marketing.

Listeners are encouraged to think about why they got into business in the first place and what motivates them.

They are also urged to apply themselves diligently to producing new content. Consistency has been the key to the podcast’s rapid growth, Mark says.

“It’s taken seven months to reach that point. That’s done without paid promotion,” he says, apart from a little Facebook advertising early on.

“There’s no paid model to this. We need to ask: Are there ways we can extend our reach organically?

“People know the podcast is consistently up on a Friday by 8am and we’re on LinkedIn and Twitter promoting it.”

Podcasting is growing ever stronger as a way of reaching people. Sixty-four per cent of podcast listening is done on mobile phones, up from 55 per cent only last year – and the Ericcson Mobility Report has predicted there will be 6.1billion smartphones the world by 2020, overtaking fixed lines.

“Podcasting presents immense opportunity, when it is done properly as a committed communication tool,” says Mark.

Although their material is heard around the world, the pair have not made concessions in the content, and have several times focused on the experience of Dorset businesses such as River Cottage and Jimmy’s Iced Coffee.

“Digital marketing is US-led. We’re looking at it from a UK perspective,” says Ian.

Mark adds that they avoid American vocabulary. There will be no talk of “hustle” here.

“If you’re using language that’s not appropriate to here, then straight away you become like everybody else,” he says.

Fashionable marketing-speak is often mocked in the podcasts. There is even scepticism about the oft-used word “content”, despite Mark having written a book called The Content Revolution.

“Marketing has become too serious. It’s all about statistics, all about sales funnels. We’re keeping the human approach to marketing. It’s still the most viable route to grow your business,” says Ian.

For 2016, the pair have turned their podcasts into a 48-week structured programme on marketing strategy. The emphasis will still be on businesses putting out their own message.

“Every company has a reason it started. Every company was there to solve a problem for somebody, even without realising it,” says Mark.

And he urges people to create valuable material rather than count clicks and Facebook thumbs-up.

“We have to be driven by qualitative measurements rather than quantitative stuff,” Mark says.

“Can you put something out there somebody likes?”

* Marketing Homebrew is available on iTunes and Stitcher and at marketinghomebrew.com. The live edition is available in return for an email address at bit.ly/homebrewlate