The TrustMakers already books the people most podcasts can't get: deans, CEOs, Harvard professors, heads of research. The content is there. What it needs now is a partner built to grow it, with audience intelligence, active guest support, and a demand engine that puts each episode in front of more of the senior stakeholders Edelman's trust franchise is built on.
The TrustMakers is the Edelman Trust Institute's voice in audio, grounded in the same research that puts Richard Edelman on stage at Davos every January. The 2026 Trust Barometer's central call is for leaders to become trust-brokers in a world turning insular. The show is where that idea gets made real, one conversation at a time. The opportunity is simple: the content is excellent, and it deserves a distribution and growth partner that can match it.
The TrustMakers is more than content. It's the audio expression of the firm's whole thesis that trust is the ultimate currency and that leaders must broker it. When the show reaches more of the right people, the mission travels with it. Growing this audience isn't a marketing line item. It's extending the reach of the idea Edelman is known for, at the exact moment trust is the global conversation.
The current model treats distribution as a hand-off: produce the episode, pass it along, hope it lands. That's why the numbers have drifted. Mission works the opposite way. We sit close to the show, look at every number behind the scenes, and treat growth as something engineered episode by episode. Here's the difference in practice.
One thing Edelman has asked for directly: a partner who gives real feedback, the kind that helps win the internal battles a show like this always has. Because we run shows across many categories, we can say what's working and what isn't, with evidence, and we're comfortable being that outside voice when it helps move a decision forward. That's not an add-on. It's how we work.
Two options, both running twelve months and lined up with your September reset. The Growth Partnership is built around your team continuing to produce. The Full Production Partnership takes production off your plate too. Final scope per workstream gets settled with your team at kickoff.
You've said the team wants to keep producing more in-house, with a lot of stakeholders involved on your side. That's why the Growth Partnership is the one we'd recommend. The full option is here so you can see exactly what handing production over would add, and what it would cost.
It's a fair question for any marketing leader: why this number, for a podcast? The honest answer is that the show didn't plateau because the content got worse. It plateaued because distribution alone doesn't grow audiences. Strategy without intelligence is guesswork. Guest support without a real network is just calendars. The pieces compound only when they're run as one system, by one team, with shared incentives.
Here's everything that's actually involved in growing a show like this. The market rates are listed so the breadth is visible; the real argument is at the bottom.
| Capability | What the market charges |
|---|---|
| Strategic direction Senior advisory from a team with nearly a decade in podcast media, blending content with business goals in a way most agencies can't. Tied to your roadmap, not a one-off deck. | $10,000 – $20,000 / mo |
| Project management & account ownership A dedicated lead running the show end to end, keeping every workstream connected. | $1,000 – $3,000 / mo |
| Guest pipeline support Executive-level outreach and our network, working alongside your contacts. | $1,000 – $3,000 / mo |
| Brief & interview direction Review or first-pass on prep doc and interview direction so strategy and content goals land in every episode. | $500 – $1,500 / mo |
| Promotion & audience growth Proprietary demand-side platform across Forbes, Business Insider, and partner networks, plus targeted YouTube ads. | No market equivalent |
| Audio & video editing Full-service podcast editing, in the Full engagement only. | $300 – $1,500 / episode ($600 – $3,000 / mo at 2 ep/mo) |
| Full brief & interview build Built from scratch, in the Full engagement only. | $500 – $1,500 / mo |
| Show notes, transcripts & social copy SEO-ready notes, full transcripts, ready-to-post copy. In the Full engagement only. | $200 – $500 / episode ($400 – $1,000 / mo at 2 ep/mo) |
| Audience intelligence ICP verification + listener surveys. | Most agencies don't offer it |
Ranges reflect 2026 B2B podcast-services benchmarks. Per-episode services calculated at the show's two-episode-per-month average.
The other half of the math is what an underperforming flagship costs a firm whose entire product is trust and influence. Every month the audience drifts, excellent conversations with deans and CEOs reach fewer of exactly the stakeholders Edelman builds its franchise around. For most companies a quiet podcast is a small thing. For a trust company, it's a credibility leak worth closing.
The investment has two parts: a fixed monthly retainer for the team and the work, plus a separate monthly media budget for audience growth that you choose based on ambition. Both are billed monthly, on an annual term that lines up with your September contract reset. Each card below shows the retainer and the all-in annual range including the three growth bands detailed in the next section.
You told us the team wants to keep producing more in-house, with a lot of stakeholders on your side. Core respects that. It puts Mission where you actually need us, on strategy, reach, and intelligence, and leaves production where your team wants it. The full option is the benchmark for what handing production over would add.
This is the part you flagged as the real need, and it's where Mission is genuinely different. Instead of renting Google, LinkedIn, or Meta ads, which run expensive for a senior niche like this one, we run growth through our own demand-side engine: targeted placements across partners like Forbes and Business Insider, matched to the exact listener you want. Pick a band that fits your ambition. The same engine targets by city, including markets outside the U.S., so global growth rides on the same spend.
Estimated lift is based on Mission's recent benchmark cost-per-download against an ICP-matched audience. Final figures confirmed at kickoff once we pull the show's live numbers and target markets. Media spend is separate from the retainer.
Your contract reset is September, and budget planning is happening now. That's the ideal runway. Here's the path.